The Monthly “12 CIO Personas” Book Turning: The Futurologist CIO Dec. 2018

The digital CIOs have to wear different colors of hats and master multiple leadership personas and management roles effortlessly.

This book “12 CIO Personas: The Digital CIO’s Situational Leadership Practices” is the extensive brainstorming and logical content expansion of my book “CIO Master: Unleash the Digital Potential of IT,” to reimagine and reinvent CIO leadership via practicing multitudes of digital influence. The important thing is that CIOs as the top leadership role must have a strong mindset, a unique personality, and a clear idea of what needs to be done, yet creative enough to not hold the company back from growth. Regardless of which personality they have, digital CIOs need to be both transformational and situational, innovative and tactical, business savvy and technology insightful, communication-effective and operation-efficient. Here is a set of blogs to brainstorm CIO as futurologist.

The Futurologist CIO

The Futurologist CIO: Digital transformation isn’t just an extension of continuous improvement of the current business, but a quantum leap with radical changes. The futurologist digital CIOs attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities about the future of the business and how they can emerge from the present and run IT as a game changer. It is at the tipping point that top performing companies see IT as an asset, capital, and source of competitive advantage.

The Digital CIO’s Breadth of Vision and Depth of Insight: Organizations no matter large or small, all face unprecedented changes, uncertainty, and accelerated business dynamic. With abundant information and continuous disruptions, business initiatives today nearly always involve some form of technology implementation or information processing. However, many IT organizations still get stuck at the low maturity which stems from the prevailing cultural norm that accepts IT as a tactical function, but not as a strategic partner. Until this changes, IT will continue being perceived as the cost center and support desk. To keep IT relevant, digital CIOs must share the breadth of vision and the depth of insight and reinvent IT as the strategic business partner.

Are Visionary CIOs Often Outliers? Modern CIOs have multiple personas, they have to wear different hats to fit the roles situationally in order to lead effectively. Technology is complex, business is complex, and people are complex. Due to increasing changes in the digital dynamic environment, The CIOs needs to be a dynamic person with vision, open, growth and complexity mindset- with high ability to envision the digital trends, manage innovations, communicating to suit situations so as to craft strategies and make things happen. Visionary CIOs are in demand, but who are they, and what can they do to drive digital transformation of the business?

Is Vision "Must Have" or "Nice to Have" for CIOs & C-Suites The best vision is insight, the most-wanted vision is foresight, Being a visionary is a character or perspective. But, is vision “must have” or “nice to have” for CIOs and other C-level executives? Here are nine collective insights upon the “vision thing.”

“CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 2 “CIOs as Digital Visionary” Introduction: The Digital Era makes a significant impact on every aspect of the business from people to process, to technology, both horizontally and vertically. In many forward-looking organizations, IT plays a pivotal role in such a radical transformation. The CIO also becomes a strategic leadership role in conveying the digital vision and co-create business strategy and reinventing IT as a growth and innovation engine of the organization. More specifically, visionary CIOs play the following unique role:

Modern organizations have their own sophistication with silo functions, the sea of information, and the pool of talents. The CIO is an inherently cross-functional role, to bridge the business and IT; the data and insight, the business’s today and tomorrow. The digital CIOs have to wear different personas and master multiple leadership and management roles effortlessly. They need to lead at the strategic level for conducting a complex digital orchestra; they should be handy managers to plumbing information and keep it flow smoothly; they also have to be like the diligent gardeners, to build a unique IT landscape via tuning technology, removing waste, nurturing culture, and empowering people.

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