As the technological threats to corporate well-being increasingly become an every day occurrence, more and more boardrooms are beginning to allow their Chief Technology Officer’s (CIO) a greater substantive say in how to mitigate risks associated with internal and external controls. However, that progress has not come without some fault of the CIO’s. The requests by CIO’s to expend capital assets, ever since Y2K, to protect the corporate infrastructure, have never truly given corporate directors any cause for excitement in the way of investment-back expectation. The result has usually been high expenditures that show little in the way of profit contribution to the organization. That attitude is slowly shifting back in favor of the CIO so long as he/she is aware of how to balance the technical decisions that need to be made to protect corporate infrastructure with that of business profitability.
On May 24, 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported that CIO’s are more important than ever to the overall success of an organization, but their lack of percieved broader management skills has inhibited their ability to attain any higher role within the organization (i.e. CEO) – especially outside the technology industry. The observations by the WSJ, based on an 11 year study where over 600 IT professionals attended a development program sponsored by the newspaper, shows that the areas where CIO’s lack greatest in broader management skills include: (1) Leadership; (2) Strategic Thinking; (3) Synthesis Skills; (4) Communication Skills; (5) Influence Skills; and (6) Relationship Skills. The study suggests that if a CIO can admit and recognize that they don’t have the full set of skills it takes to be a senior executive and take an active role in guiding the company, then their ability to climb the corporate ladder will become severely limited. Once the CIO can come to grips with that reality, and begin the process of acquiring such skills, they will earn the right to assume a much more prominent role within the organization. The role of the CIO is evolving, and like any profession, the need to focus on professional development will become key to future successes.