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The past couple of years have been a period of retrenchment in the CIO ranks, with turnover declining and compensation moving up slowly, if at all. But according to the almost 500 top IT executives who responded to this year’s CIO Insight survey on the role of the CIO, two critical trends are gathering speed. Most noticeable is the move toward the business-oriented CIO: Our respondents agree that they need to spend more time on business issues than they have in the past, and the great majority believe that future CIOs will need significantly more business experience than they themselves have now. The importance of aligning IT with the business also continues to grow. At the same time, however, the leadership gap appears to be widening: In ever greater numbers, CIOs point to leadership as the most important personal attribute required for their jobs, yet fewer CIOs than ever cite the ability to lead as one of their strongest attributes. Can today’s CIOs keep up with all the demands of their job?
