Today's CIO: leader first, expert second!

The IT Department is at the heart of the digital transformation, which is impacting the way organizations work.
The IT Director is becoming the driving force behind the change of scale in IT. His managerial and leadership qualities are now expected to ensure that the orientations he recommends are deployed, optimized and adopted.

The main challenges in terms of CIO leadership are :

• ISD HR: managing, identifying, recruiting and retaining skills.
• Internal communication between the IT department and the business units to achieve a fluid relationship.

Leadership is the ability of an individual to lead or direct other individuals or organizations to achieve certain goals.

This leadership skill is central to the first module of Infortive Transition & CentraleSupélec Exed's Executive Certificate CIO, an intense, operational program specifically designed for the IS leaders of today and tomorrow.

"Leadership is the ability of a leader to chart a course while ensuring the total buy-in of his collaborators." (Alain Ducasse)

The CIO's dual role: strategic and operational

The CIO must be prepared to become increasingly involved in his company's strategy and organization. He or she has both an advisory and an operational role. He or she must be attentive to the needs of employees, in close touch with the evolution of their uses in each of their professions, in order to train, inform and transform information transmission processes.
This presupposes a posture centered on others, based on listening and understanding.

Dare to inspire!

New practices linked to telecommuting, for example (BYOD / Bring Your Own Device, nomadism...) can create fears, difficulties and even blockages. It takes real leadership talent to consider them, respond to them, and (re)create buy-in and collaboration. Courage is one of the core leadership values taught in this course. Insightful CIOs know that to meet these new challenges of leadership, collaboration, management and communication, they need training. You can't just become a leader.

Here are just a few of the qualities that distinguish excellent CIOs:

• Interpersonal skills
• Analytical skills
• Knowledge of the issues,
• Strategic vision
• Communication
• Ability to influence management.

Know-how that makes all the difference:

• Acting as an advisor to senior management
• Define a vision, an ambition adapted to the context, and embody it
• Getting teams to work together
• Become a coach to support and secure users
• Remain consistent and focus on tangible results
• Be inspiring and caring.

The IS Department, a compass

Communication and listening skills are among the soft skills the CIO needs to manage Open Innovation, Design Thinking and techniques for optimizing collective intelligence.
It's no longer just a question of the technical aspects, but of what his or her impact will bring to the company in terms of creating value and optimizing costs and risks. The CIO must have the same ability to anticipate and understand the company's environment and challenges as the organization's general and strategic management. 

The professional development of CIOs may seem like a challenge, but it's an exciting one!