“You have to continue to learn; you have to keep up to date,” he says, contending that the CIO is best positioned to create a vision of tomorrow for the executive team. “The CIO should be visionary.”
He expects his direct reports and others on his IT team to do the same, and he works to cultivate a “really good culture of learners” through formal training and development programs with names such as Summit 2025, Aspire, Ignite, and Ascend.
5. Improve your leadership abilities
The amount of change is impacting all jobs, including those in IT — up to and including the CIO role, Pearlson says. So CIOs need to be on top of emerging technology and all the implications that go with them. Otherwise, she says, they could be blindsided and see transformative work move from their office to another. That already happens, she notes, as evidenced by the creation of the chief digital officer, chief transformation officer, and chief AI officer positions.
CIOs who want to work on the opportunities that, for example, quantum computing will present — and not lose that work to a new chief quantum officer — need to demonstrate exemplary leadership capabilities now.
“We are at another inflection point for the skill set and role of a CIO today,” Pearlson adds.
Westerman says many CIOs have work to do here, as they to date have advanced their careers due to their tech talent and not for their management and executive skills. As a result, CIOs often have more work to do to sharpen those skills than others in the C-suite.
CIOs have plenty of opportunities to improve — they just have to be intentional, Westerman says, noting that tried-and-true leadership development strategies continue to work.
Develop relationships, deliver on promised expectations, seek feedback on how to do better, and then find ways to improve. “CIOs should be asking themselves, ‘Am I getting enough feedback? Am I effective in my environment?’” he adds.
Clark sees improving her leadership talents as an ongoing task that takes commitment.
“I’m always looking at my own leadership skills. I make sure I get feedback, so I know I’m effective in what I’m trying to achieve. I’m evaluating if I’m an effective peer for my peers. I’m asking, ‘Am I an effective leader? Am I an effective communicator? Am I getting my message out clearly? I’m doing 360s and really taking in the results, because you can’t become a more effective leader if you don’t know what you need to work on,” Clark says. “It’s a journey, and you do it for the rest of your life.”
