Thriving in a changing world

To thrive during the next five years, CIOs must be business leaders first and technology leaders second. Taking on additional business duties is essential to ensuring that you are viewed as a business leader, according to Gartner. But keeping your eyes on the prize may be harder than it sounds. For one thing, CIOs tend to be long-term planners, while CEOs think ahead to the next quarter. And in general, CIOs are more process-focused while CEOs are more outcome-focused. Finally, IT leaders tend to see projects in terms of cost, while business leaders see them through the lens of opportunity. It boils down to this: Focus on only a few things; view projects as opportunities; bring your financial management, sales and marketing, and change management skills to the table as part of your overall IT strategy; make sure you're at the forefront of influence and change; and make sure that you have all of the skills needed to run a top IT organization along with the business acumen to help set strategy for the company.

Learn more about thriving in the corporate world:
- read the article at SearchCIO