IT Leadership

Successful businesses today regard Information and Communications Technology (“ICT”) as a strategic lever for growth rather than an overhead to be controlled and limited in order to maintain profitability. However, in order that ICT can contribute successfully as a strategic business asset, it is important that either the Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) has a widening knowledge of ICT or else ICT leaders are brought into the senior management team. As businesses develop their corporate governance structures, IT leaders are being brought more into the boardroom to contribute to strategic planning rather than simply being consulted on specific projects or problems. The IT Director or IT Manager is becoming replaced by the Chief Information Officer (“CIO”).

ICT leaders need to have much more than their traditional ICT technical skills. The CIO needs to have management skills similar to the Chief Executive Officer, namely:

leadership

financial management

human resource management

marketing and communications

technical ICT skills

project management

business awareness

strategic vision

Of course, not every ICT technician will be capable of growing their skills and capability to become a ICT leader. Unfortunately, in many organisations, the ICT leader traditionally has been expected to fulfil a management role with very limited staff resources and, sometimes, with little support or corporation from administration and HR departments.

ICT leaders will always find it difficult to provide leadership and strategic vision if they are excluded from contributing to the business's long-term corporate planning process. In 4-consulting, we frequently come across organisations that try to develop and operate an IT strategy plan and budget without any Corporate Plan and Strategic Objectives to provide the necessary context. This happens in both the public and private sectors. In these cases, we find that the ICT function thinks it knows what needs to be done and charges ahead to procure and implement ICT investments leaving the rest of the business behind. As a result, business owners and senior management teams come to feel that the ICT department does not deliver value for money and colleagues feel that they do not understand what ICT personnel do for the business. The failure of the business to understand the value of the ICT function can mean that ICT personnel become demotivated resulting in a loss of quality staff and skills to competitors and other sectors.

An important skill for ICT leaders is the ability to communicate and sell key ICT projects to both their own technical staff and to non-technical managers in other parts of the business and beyond. It is rare to find an ICT professional with only technical skills that can communicate successfully with end users and stakeholders in simple language.

The modern ICT leader is expected, therefore, to contribute to the long-term corporate planning process, to build and retain teams of high quality ICT professionals and to provide effective, resilient and sustainable ICT services on limited budgets and restricted timeframes.

There are similarities in the skills sets required by both the CIO and the CEO but an important there is an important difference when it comes to decision-making. There are different ways in which a leader might make a decision such as:

	Directive or authorative – where you make the decision yourself
	Consensus – where you agree with a group decision but do not necessarily agree
	Delegation – where you invite someone else to make the decision; often a person with special skills, knowledge or experience
	Consultative – where you gather opinions but make the decision yourself
	Democratic – where a group of interested people or stakeholders take a vote

High quality decisions tend to come through consultation and delegation whereas poor decisions are likely to arise from democratic or authorative management styles. Many organisations and their CEOs adopt a directive decision-making culture although creative or academic organisations are more likely to use a more consensus-oriented decision-making approach. The successful ICT leader will use all of the decision-making approaches depending on the circumstances.

Although the CIO has a leadership role, the CEO will always be the ultimate decision-maker who will lay down the responsibilities and authority of the CIO. The relationship between the CEO and the CIO must be based on trust and team-working. The CIO will not always have authority to make decisions but will be intimately involved in the organisation’s strategic planning activity.

If you would like to learn more about how you can establish a Chief Information Officer role and create a 21st century successful business, please contact Sandy Pratt for a free consultation. You can click here to view his profile.

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