The debate about the role and future of chief information officers (CIOs) is an ongoing one. Why is this so, when there is relatively little discussion about the scope of other executive roles such as the chief financial officer?

One reason relates to the scope of what CIOs do. This typically ranges from internal management of IT services to proactive engagement with senior stakeholders on business change. All the leading CIOs that I have interviewed or who participated in my focus groups agree on one thing: someone who only has an IT departmental view may be a great IT manager but they are not a true CIO.

While leading CIOs agree on the importance of being a change agent, there is less consensus when it comes to the role of CIOs in managing information. Some say this is the responsibility of their business colleagues, while others recognise it as part of their role. Either way, few have actually set proactive agendas in this area. If CIOs are to justify the middle letter of their role, they need to do more in this area, both in the control and exploitation of information.

The scope of the CIO’s role has an obvious bearing on the skills he or she needs to fulfil that remit. Much of the research in this area explores the leadership competencies of the CIO. The general conclusion is that the CIO needs strong stakeholder engagement and influencing skills to be viewed as a business partner.

Other research, such as a survey I conducted with the BCS, focuses on a broader range of skills required by CIOs. Results of the survey confirmed the existence of five skill groups – business, management, professional, technical and personal. The biggest gap for aspiring CIOs was in personal skills, with business skills in second place. This may explain why some organisations have appointed CIOs who have minimal technical skills. The most surprising example in my experience was a sales director being chosen as the CIO. Once in place, this particular CIO asked me to support him in changing his IT team’s mindset and capabilities. He went on to achieve notable success in the role, before moving on to another general management position.

The follow-up to this story was that I was asked to help the organisation recruit the CIO’s successor from a shortlist drawn up by an executive search firm. Having achieved the behavioural transformation of the IT department, the new demand was for a well-rounded CIO with an IT background who also had a good cultural fit with the organisation. I agreed a set of criteria for the role, which each member of the recruitment team used to evaluate the candidates. Only one of the four on the shortlist met the criteria sufficiently well.

Reflecting on the cultural fit leads us to another key assessment category for the CIO – the situational perspective. While the five types of skills mentioned above remain valid, a different balance and mindset is required depending on what challenges the organisation is facing. Several situational models have been developed, including one with three scenarios – turnaround, evolutionary and transformation.

In the first scenario, the organisation has significant problems related to IT. These may be that the service levels are poor or that projects are failing, often combined with relationship issues. A CIO for this situation will be action-oriented, quick to identify the source of the problems and able to motivate colleagues to resolve these. Once this task is completed, the CIO may be less happy to work in an evolutionary role.

Stakeholder facilitation skills are important in an evolutionary scenario since there is no “burning platform” for radical change. Different requests need to be balanced through effective governance forums. New services are added in a controlled fashion with the emphasis on progressive enhancement while reducing risk.

Sometimes organisations will persist with an evolutionary approach when a transformation capability is long overdue. Transformation almost invariably requires both a business and IT overhaul. The CIO must be capable of engaging with the chief executive and the top executive team to create a vision of the target business model and enterprise architecture. These goals are challenging, leading to fulfilling assignments as a CIO. I was fortunate enough to work for large multinationals with a strong track record of acquisitions that were predicated on a transformation capability.

So how does a CIO acquire the competencies necessary to meet all the various demands made of them? A CIO should first be comfortable with engaging in business dialogue. This requires a broad-based business education that can be acquired by undertaking a range of project management roles or working in different departments, and may be supplemented by an MBA.

Developing personal competencies can be particularly demanding and while training courses will help, many executives look to coaching to get real insights into their own behaviours. This can also help in enhancing management skills, particularly in a matrix organisation.

Many educational programmes exist for professional skills. In my view, there are three core professional areas: services, projects and business change. Methodologies such as Prince2 and Itil support the first two areas. I was involved in helping the BCS develop a foundation qualification in the third area. CIOs will typically appoint specialists in these three areas but need to know how they fit together and where the tensions lie.

Does the CIO need to understand the technology? In-depth skills are not required but a little knowledge can be dangerous, particularly when a non-technical CIO feels the need to display their IT competence. A broad understanding of business technology is a must, however.

In summary, CIOs need to reflect on their environment and organisation so that they build the competencies needed to make a success of the role in changing circumstances. Over the past two years, I have launched a Masters programme at Henley Business School aimed at business IT professional development. It is encouraging for the future of the CIO role that there is so much interest in creating this holistic capability. We are now building a transformation hub at Henley so that we can help organisations to achieve their goals.

IBM White Paper download
Learn how CIOs are resetting their business priorities in response to the current economic situation, in IBM's global study

Dr Sharm Manwani is an associate professor at Henley Business School and a former CIO. For more information on any of the above, email sharm.manwani@henley.com.