While the C-suite occupies the top rung of the career ladder, many overlook the additional, nuanced paths CIOs can take to enhance their own skills and those of their teams. We delve into strategies for CIOs to develop their capabilities and become even more effective leaders.
Eleni Kelly, CIO, Pluxee UK
The role of the CIO has evolved significantly, demanding a unique blend of technical expertise, strategic thinking and leadership skills. To navigate this complex landscape and progress in their careers, CIOs must develop a comprehensive skill set and cultivate a resilient mindset.
Building resilience and emotional intelligence
The CIO role often involves handling complex challenges and managing high-pressure situations. Resilience is paramount for navigating these demands. By developing a thick skin, CIOs can effectively handle criticism and setbacks without taking things personally. Emotional intelligence is equally crucial for understanding and responding to the needs of employees, stakeholders and customers.
Practising mindfulness techniques, such as deep breathing and meditation, has helped me manage stress and maintain composure during challenging times. This is a key focus that CIOs can be continuously working on to improve their emotional intelligence and soft skills. Stepping back from a situation to gain perspective can also be beneficial.
Prioritising people development and talent management
As leaders of their organisations’ IT functions, we play a pivotal role in developing talent. Investing in the growth and development of the IT team is crucial for ensuring the organisation has the necessary capabilities to meet current and future challenges. This involves identifying and nurturing talent, providing opportunities for skill development and creating a supportive work environment.
Balancing work and life
The CIO role demands significant time and energy, often leading to work/life imbalance. To counter this, CIOs must prioritise their well-being. A balanced life enhances decision-making, encourages creativity and increases job satisfaction – effective strategies include time management, setting boundaries and prioritising self-care. Building a strong support network and seeking mentorship can also be invaluable.
Ultimately, work/life balance is a personal journey. Finding the right approach requires experimentation and self-awareness. By making intentional choices and prioritising well-being, CIOs can personally and professionally thrive.
Cultivating strong communication and leadership skills
Effective communication is a cornerstone of successful leadership. CIOs must be able to articulate complex technical concepts in clear and concise language, both to technical and non-technical audiences. Storytelling is also a valuable skill, enabling CIOs to frame technology initiatives in terms of business value and impact.
Developing strong leadership skills is essential for inspiring and motivating teams. This includes the ability to build trust, delegate effectively and create a positive and inclusive work environment.
Embracing continuous learning
The IT industry is constantly evolving, necessitating a commitment to lifelong learning. CIOs must stay updated on emerging technologies and industry trends to remain competitive. Attending conferences, workshops and webinars can provide valuable opportunities for professional development.
By focusing on these key areas, CIOs can enhance their leadership capabilities, build strong relationships and position themselves for career advancement.
Matt Cockbill, Partner, CIO Practice, Odgers Berndtson
To progress your career as a CIO, focus on creating good leadership habits that emphasise impact, influence and being integral to the organisation. Effective leadership is essential, particularly in the post-pandemic landscape where innovation has accelerated. This means acting as a whole business and board leader first, and functional leader second.
Getting lost in the minutia of the technology without communicating how it drives business success will limit your career as a CIO, preventing you from stepping up to the board table. Communicate in the recognisable language of your business stakeholders, focusing on generating value and bringing people along to deliver change. Ensure your communication skills are strong, effectively conveying strategies at every level of the organisation, and engaging with peers for support.
Balance technical competence with leadership, fostering an innovation culture that embraces both risks and rewards. Manage digital risk and make strategic investments which deliver on the business strategy, and therefore showcase your business acumen. Alignment is critical – your strategic investments should be entirely guided by the insights you have gained from being at the forefront of the company’s commercial vision.
Additionally, to advance as a CIO, cultivate a strong personal brand to become an influential leader whose input is actively sought at the board level. Build and maintain a network of industry peers and third-party partners for insights and guidance on leveraging next-generation technology. Do not operate in isolation; seek counsel and advice, engage in informal mentoring and aim to build a public brand that has a draw effect on talent who you can add to your team. By focusing on these areas, you can position yourself as integral to your organisation’s success, driving innovation and leading your teams effectively, which will signal you for promotion.
Naveen Zutshi, CIO, Databricks
As the CIO role continues to evolve, one thing remains constant: building bridges across the rest of the C-suite and the organisation as a whole is table stakes. This requires not just partnership by the CIO but also their entire IT team. Focusing on building an IT organisation that is product-based can challenge the status quo, and iterating for consistent innovation is required. Through efficient, active partnerships and collaboration with other stakeholders, CIOs can steer their teams toward making a positive business impact.
Speak each others’ languages for buy-in
First, CIOs must take the time to understand and internalise what other stakeholders are prioritising and why. For example, accuracy and reliability are generally important to a CFO; speed is important to a CRO. CIOs must work well with each of these stakeholders, so balancing that accuracy with speed (which is a careful art) helps to gain confidence from each in the long term. It doesn’t happen overnight but laying the groundwork – especially when starting a new role – pays off in the long run.
Say ‘yes’ to innovation and bring other stakeholders along as a partner
My ultimate goal as a CIO is to leverage technologies to benefit the business. Technology touches many different aspects of the organisation, so tapping other stakeholders’ expertise is essential – especially when it comes to security, privacy, risk management and legal issues.
To use AI/LLMs as an example, many IT professionals say ‘no’ due to concerns about compliance, control and the governance risk of the technology. While these are valid worries, they are also areas of expertise for security, privacy and legal teams to provide guidance. Our job as CIOs is to say ‘yes’ to the right innovations and to collaborate with the security and legal teams to establish the proper controls.
Solicit regular feedback – and follow through
Offering avenues for other stakeholders to share regular feedback about the IT organisation is essential for understanding concerns and areas for improvement, as well as anticipating potential roadblocks.
My philosophy on building trust is through delivery. I take feedback seriously and at face value so I can lead my team to deliver on promises, whether adjusting an area of improvement in the right direction or doubling down on activities other stakeholders find helpful. Being upfront about challenges, missteps and missed opportunities goes a long way, too – the appreciation most leaders have for transparency and accountability can’t be understated.
Stephanie Noble, Managing R&D Consultant, Talogy
The responsibilities of a CIO involve prioritising the development and implementation of IT strategy, ensuring robust cybersecurity, maintaining stakeholder relationships, managing resources and delivering projects on time and within budget, to name a few.
While the role of a CIO lends itself well to an emphasis on technical strategy, tasks and skills, to successfully progress their careers CIOs must ensure they balance this technical expertise with a human-centred leadership approach.
An insight from Talogy’s recent leadership research suggests that expectations of leaders have shifted, being an inspiring, knowledgeable technical expert is no longer enough. Human-centred leadership is desired by employees, encouraged by organisations and is recognised as a key predictor of success by many leaders globally.
This approach requires a leader to demonstrate authenticity, openness and behaviours that make each employee feel trusted, appreciated and heard. Leaders should understand and live by their own values while also managing their personality and behaviour through emotional intelligence.
At this senior leadership level, the research highlighted several other specific behaviours needed for success as a leader progresses into a higher leadership role:
- Thinking more strategically: Taking a strategic view and building a long-term vision. CIOs need to focus on a broader business perspective, considering the entire organisation and external factors. They must manage strategic priorities with increasing complexity and find the right balance between people and results.
- Improving communication style: At this more strategic level, CIOs are no longer only communicating and guiding individual contributors or team leaders, their communication often needs to be organization-wide, clear and direct, and positioned at a level all employees and leaders can understand.
- Making tough decisions: They need to execute difficult decisions, accept risk and responsibility and navigate organisational politics. All while dealing with heightened pressure, as they are directly responsible for important outcomes such as financial results, quality, security and compliance.
- Empowering others to make decisions: They must learn to lean on their team and trust them to deliver on strategic goals. CIOs become ‘less hands-on’, delegating tasks to others and removing themselves from the detailed day-to-day running of the team. It is important they trust their employees to deliver.
- Building trust: It is not just the trust of their direct reports or teams CIOs require, it is the trust of the whole organisation. This can be accomplished over time through creating a positive leadership climate within the organisation, stemming from a CIOs own behaviour. This should be an open and honest environment where they are accountable and lead by example.
In summary, successfully progressing as a CIO moves way above and beyond technical expertise and involves leading the organisation. Key behaviours for success focus on building and maintaining trust, providing clarity in communication, moving towards big-picture strategic thinking, managing a breadth of relationships and empowering others. Finally, over-arching these behaviours is the need to apply a human-centred leadership approach. CIOs who help others to understand who they are as a leader and recognise and value their employees will have greater success with future career progression.
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