The CIO’s Leadership Footprint

“One who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints.

Modern CIOs have one of the most paradoxical but significant executive roles, as information technology becomes so pervasive, they craft their organization’s architectural blueprint; they shape their business’s digital footprint; they are responsible for their enterprise’s information footprint, they shape the fresh cloud footprint, they also work hard to reduce the data center’s carbon footprint. However, first things first, CIOs, don’t forget to build up your leadership footprint.

1. The Influencer’s Footprint

“The footprints you leave behind will influence others. There is no person who at some time, somewhere, somehow, does not lead another.          

Leadership is an influence, influence comes from wisdom, wisdom is base on knowledge, but more than knowledge and knowledge is gained from information & data, luckily, The CIO is the official owner of business’s information system. However,  such an entitlement won’t guarantee the CIO’s leadership effectiveness.

The CIO’s leadership skill needs to be transferable and touchable, to bring up the fresh perspective into business, new industry, instilling new culture, inspiring new thinking, transformational CIO and IT need to craft influence landscape and leave footprint cross-functional silo, and keep pondering on how to improve project success rate (average 70% failure rate statistically), how to significantly improve 80/20 IT investment ratio, and leverage how much percentage of resources have created business value.

The CIO’s footprint is more than the feet crunching in the sand, it may also like the wind blowing in the trees, the waves curling on the beach, the firework blossoms in the sky and the song of the mockingbird as the evening sunsets.

2. The Improvement Footprint

We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. Eddington 

Modern technology proves human’s progress. At a contemporary business, technology is an enabler for business transformation, process optimization, and talent empowerment. CIO as a C-level peer executive, the leadership footprint needs to cover all functional organizations & their inter-relationships and know how to orchestrate them effectively.

The CIO’s leadership footprint is base on business acumen, and a comprehensive understanding business in general, to perceive future vision and craft strategic planning, to master the SWOT analytics, GAP, IMPACT, Value Analysis., etc, not only grasp the growth opportunities, but also include competitive landscape, regulation, and governance.

The CIO’s leadership footprint is rising on the data shore or hidden in the deep valley, scatters on the mountain or flow with the cloud,  and lead business’s continuous improvement with a small step and large leap.

3. The Innovation Footprint

Don't tell me the sky is the limit, there are footprints on the moon!

Today’s forward-looking CIO also need be an innovator with both critical thinking and creative thinking capabilities as CIO is truly an influential leadership role which can make a significant difference for business's win or wane, it might also mean to create unique footprint to lead through business transformation.

The innovation leadership includes the movers and shakers with fair judgment; thought leaders who can bring up the different point of view; the innovators with the hybrid mindset to blend three elements of the triad: analytics mindset of the business strategist, the innovative mindset of the entrepreneur; and communication mindset of the coach. 

The CIO‘s innovation footprint can be traced at the rocky road in innovation management journey, with clear goals to delight customers and to engage employees via the effective process and right tools & platform, a radically different kind of management needs to be in place, a different way of coordinating work, a different set of values and a different way of communicating. The CIO’s leadership footprint needs to be left in customers’ mind, the employees’ heart, at the customer frontline or the big room in decision-making.   

The transformational CIO does not lead alone, the CIO’s footprint need be interwoven with other leaders,’  the high-performance leadership team needs to compliment each other’s skills, styles, and strengths, to deliver economic, social and people values at the same time and build solid global footprint.

Yes, there are also footprints on the moon.

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Posted in: CIO Debate,CIO Leadership,Future of Leadership,Innovation