Follow this blog:: RSS; Email Alert

Tech Sanity Check

Video: Top leadership qualities of CIOs

August 13, 2008, 7:54 AM PDT

sanity_saver_e16.flv 214893 http://i.bnet.com/gallery/216007-400-300.jpg rtmp://v.zdnet.com/video/

What does it take to be a great IT leader? The best insights come from the CIOs who are out there doing it every day. In this episode of Sanity Savers for IT executives, see what CIOs have identified as the top leadership qualities needed to run an IT department.

Here’s the original article that this episode was based on:

Top ten leadership qualities of successful CIOs

Get IT Tips, news, and reviews delivered directly to your inbox by subscribing to TechRepublic’s free newsletters.

About Jason Hiner

Jason Hiner is the Editor in Chief of TechRepublic. He writes about the products, people, and ideas that are revolutionizing business with technology.

Can SaaS lead to better IT management? Service-Now has built a platform around it

CIO Ira Levy: How we reduced the impact of users streaming the Olympics

Comments

Add Your Opinion

Join the conversation!

Follow via:: RSS; Email Alert

See All Comments

Staff Picks
Top Rated
Most Recent
My Contacts

No messages found

0 Votes

+ -

technical yes, but versitile as well

Ken@... 14th Aug 2008

Your assertion is true Steven. Especially for the small to mid sized businesses. I'd even say that it's important at the mega corporation level to a large degree.

The problem comes when that leader's entire technical background and loyalty is to a single vendor's framework or tools. I shudder to recall how many failed projects I've seen where the decision was made to - "implement a solution with (fill in the blank) 's framework or compiler or tool set of whatever - before the requirements (both present and visualized future) were even documented. The tool should not drive the solution. Never. Ever. That's the core problem I've seen after many years of reviving multi-million dollar monstrosities which demo'ed well and then failed under real world loads and conditions.
Breadth of technical experience is essential, even if the current resume builder job has one locked into a preordained framework.

View in thread

0 Votes

+ -

generic leadership qualities

Ken@... 14th Aug 2008

IMHO the generic leadership qualities are every bit as valid for the CIO as for any other senior leader. Additional qualifications of the CIO would include but not be limited to:
1-a solid understanding of pure data processing fundamentals. Sadly, the era of drag and drop programming has rendered this essential background to the heap of dinosaur bones - to many enterprises detriment.
2- a broad background in code design or software engineering which has been implemented with a wide variety of programming languages and environments.
3- data management strengths to protect corporate (single source) data whle allowing deltas for subsystem specific requirements.
4- experience across many levels and sizes of prcessors and hardware subsystems.
In most non-trivial enterprises the notion that "one size fits all" produces no best of breed solutions and quite often results in unstable, unscaleable and extremely costly to maintain solutions.

View in thread

0 Votes

+ -

RE: Video: Top leadership qualities of CIOs

Ken@... 14th Aug 2008

Well stated and largely on target Jason. How to get this message to the HR people and top hiring authorities who now seem to require current knuckles down coding experience in their framework de jour? Deep and broad background across IT platforms and vendors, along with a solid understanding of data processing fundamentals should be a requirement for sure. But recent personal coding with C# or Pearl or ASM? If that is what the candidate has been doing, then he probably has not developed the broader skills required to facilitate among stakeholders, recognize and enforce best practices and motivate for creative and tightly integrated solutions. I've seen and repaired many many failed systems which were designed and constructed by pure techies with more allegiance to their favorite coding environments than to the big picture needs of the enterprise. If Senior hiring authorities and HR screeners wold only consider the qualifications you discussed, there would be way fewer expensive failed systems being implemented every day.

View in thread

Once logged in, adding contacts is simple. Just mouse over any member's photo or click any member's name then click the "Follow" button. You can easily manage your contacts within your account contacts page.

See all comments