As leaders, CIOs are by no means as strong as they think they are. The majority of non-CIOs give their CIOs excellent or good marks for effectiveness as leaders. But they give CIOs much lower marks for leadership than CIOs give themselves-and that’s a problem. CIOs who aren’t viewed as leaders won’t be able to lead. CIOs also think very highly of the leadership skills of their top executives- even those executives are more moderate in their self-assessments. One consolation: CIOs are rated more favorably by their direct reports than CFOs or other IT executives; only the CEO scores higher.
Why are some CIOs not seen as leaders? One reason is that they still haven’t mastered key relationship-building skills: dealing with difficult people issues and sensitivity to others. At least CIOs are given credit for honesty-by other executives, anyway. Another reason: too many CIOs confuse commanding with leading. Whatever their role, respondents tend to feel a CIO who leads through reason and persuasion is most likely to be effective. The problem is that some CIOs who think they have a “logical” leadership style are seen as having a “commanding” style-and a “commanding” style is the one that appears least effective. Of course, no CIO can please everybody, and there are always some disgruntled people at the bottom of any organization. Still, the gap is so consistent and wide that CIOs should do a reality check, and then work at narrowing their leadership gap.
For other reasons CIOs are not seen as leaders, as well as findings on leadership at the mid-level IT manager level, and how executives compare the IT department’s leadership to other functions, register
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