IT leaders: Made or born?

Computerworld - RYE BROOK, N.Y. -- As a longtime IT management consultant and as a facilitator of the Society for Information Management (SIM) Regional Leadership Forum since 1994, Bart Bolton knows a thing or two about the qualities that make up an IT leader.

And while Bolton isn't convinced that a person needs charisma to be an effective IT leader, he does believe that some introverted technologists with the right qualities can be groomed.

"I know a lot of introverts who have become successful CIOs," said Bolton, who participated in an IT leadership panel discussion last week at a meeting held here by the Fairfield County, Conn., and Westchester County, N.Y., chapter of SIM. Potential IT leaders "have to develop a sense of self-awareness of who you are and who you're about that leads to a sense of self-confidence," he said.

To be a leader, "you have to know what your own style is and what works for you. And you have to find people whom you can develop who are able to find their own leadership style," Bolton said.

Effective IT leaders draw upon other qualities, of course, including the ability to set and communicate a vision for the IT organization, a capacity to market and sell that vision to IT staffers and business executives, "and the charisma to motivate," said Tom Pettibone, co-founder and managing partner at Transition Partners Co. in Reston, Va., and a former CIO at Philip Morris USA Inc. and New York Life Insurance Co.

Those types of leadership qualities, said Pettibone, are "something that's in the internal DNA" of a person. "You have to find people with a little bit of that DNA and build on top of that."

A good leader, said Pettibone, is someone who inspires people, demonstrates success, shows the way and advances the careers of the people who work for them, he said.

Still, Pettibone warns that it's not always a good idea to try to groom someone who might be a skilled manager or technologist but who doesn't necessarily want to become a leader. "To try to get them to do that [lead] is like root canal," he said.

The SIM panel, moderated by Peter Schlay of The Advisory Council in Norwalk, Conn., also debated whether and when it makes sense to tap the IT ranks for a CIO or bring in a business executive for the job. There can be risks with the latter approach, said Ron Rose, CIO at Priceline.com Inc. in Norwalk.

"For a lot of companies, the technology has to deliver and deliver quickly," said Rose. Time-to-market pressures have made the margin for technology-related errors smaller and businessmen-turned-CIOs "will have to become more technology-savvy" to keep pace.