IT leadership is the group of senior executives in an organization responsible

for the information technology (IT) infrastructure and applications that enable
and drive the overarching business strategy and goals. The top IT leader is
most frequently referred to the as the chief information officer , or CIO, but at
some organizations this responsibility is now shared with a variety of
"information chiefs," including the chief digital officer, the chief data officer and
the chief analytics officer.

There are many different styles of IT leadership, including servant

leadership and paternalistic leadership. Examples of important leadership
skills include soft (interpersonal) skills, hard skills and the ability to inspire
employees to leverage IT to improve processes.

Strong IT leadership is crucial to aligning IT and the business and is

something that evolves as organizations focus more on leveraging IT for
revenue generating initiatives and as IT becomes a driver of business change.

Evolving role of IT leadership

As organizations focus more on concepts like social, mobile, analytics and cloud --
or SMAC -- and building a digital enterprise, IT and business are becoming more
closely integrated. In addition to more innovative SMAC projects, IT leadership
executives are concerned with managing common systems like accounting
applications and payroll. But organizations' business leaders are not exempt from
needing to understand how to leverage IT.

Indeed, as automation and outsourcing become more mainstream and affordable, IT

initiatives like these are increasingly being placed solely in the respective business
units. Also, in recent years, as cloud computing has emerged and made it easier for
organizations' business units to contract for IT services directly rather than by going
through the central IT department, industries are seeing an increase in shadow IT.. In
these instances, a business unit takes on certain IT initiatives using hardware or
software that is not supported by its organization's IT department. Going hand-in-hand
with shadow IT is potentially revolutionary changes being incorporated into ERP
(enterprise resource planning), including robotic process automation. These
transformations, along with the growing trend of federated IT models, are driving
more IT responsibilities and IT leadership roles to departments outside of centralized
IT.

All of this makes leaders question whether or not IT organizations will continue to
exist separate from business entities.

Six areas driving IT leadership success

Communication is key to successful IT leadership. Here are six communication-
related concepts IT leaders should comprehend fully:

1. IT must understand the business and the business must understand IT.

2. IT should have effective value measurements that clearly demonstrate its

contribution to the business.

3. IT should create effective strategic, tactical and

operational governance processes.

4. IT needs to foster a partnership between the IT and business stakeholders.

5. IT must communicate its scope and architecture so business leaders understand

the extent of IT's contribution and that the technology is doing an effective job
within the four walls of the company and for external clients.

6. IT leaders should possess take-charge skills as well as IT skills.

To be a successful leader in IT, it is important to recognize that it is a two-way street

between IT and the business. IT leaders can't do it on their own even when they have
the appropriate skills set and motivation. To complete IT initiatives and make an
impact on the overarching business, it takes effective collaboration with business
partners within the organization.