The Transformational CIO: Leadership and Innovation Strategies for IT Executives in a Rapidly Changing World

Are You Sowing Seeds for Success—or Failure?

From my perspective, Beverly's observations are spot on. Newer CEOs seem to understand intuitively that technology plays a huge role in determining the success or failure of their tenure at the helm. It makes sense that these newer CEOs will increasingly rely on their CIOs to serve as trusted advisors and key players on executive teams.

At the same time, it seems fairly obvious that even when a CEO does not share an affinity for technology with the CIO, the CEO still counts on the CIO to succeed—after all, that's why the CIO was hired.

All of this seems to be good news for CIOs. But it also raises an interesting question: Why do CIOs often fail? In many instances, it seems that a CIO's success or failure depends far less on technical competency than on social competency.

In Chapter 4, we looked at some of the leadership skills required to stay afloat in the executive ocean. And in Chapter 6, we look at what you need to accomplish in your first 30 days on the job.

But we thought it would be a good idea to check in now with Tony Leng, a managing partner at Hodge Partners, an executive search firm based in San Francisco and Atlanta. We asked him to tell us what his priorities would be if he was a newly hired CIO.

“If you're a new CIO, the first thing you've got to do is get out there and start talking to your internal customers. You can't sit quietly behind your desk waiting for people to come to you with their problems. That is the worst ...