Thursday, March 18, 2004
Digital Leadership vs. Digital Management
CIOs have been resigning at a rapid pace lately. There have also been recent articles and discussions about enterprise CIOs losing prominence and power within government. I believe we are seeing CIOs not understand nor have governance that allows them to be leaders.
Leadership and management are about getting the same result - for people to change their behaviors. The difference is that management uses authority to accomplish the goal and leadership uses influence. Most enterprise CIOs has very little authority over the rest of government. They must use influence to accomplish change. This is more difficult and it takes longer than when you have authority over a particular activity.
When attempting to drive change throughout the organization, enterprise CIOs must look at where their influence points are, who their partners are and how the authority of their partners may come into play. CIOs need to spend their time influencing others and should leave much of the management of technology to their chief deputy. Understanding the difference between leadership and management will allow CIOs to get more done and hopefully stay on the job a little bit longer.
CIOs have been resigning at a rapid pace lately. There have also been recent articles and discussions about enterprise CIOs losing prominence and power within government. I believe we are seeing CIOs not understand nor have governance that allows them to be leaders.
Leadership and management are about getting the same result - for people to change their behaviors. The difference is that management uses authority to accomplish the goal and leadership uses influence. Most enterprise CIOs has very little authority over the rest of government. They must use influence to accomplish change. This is more difficult and it takes longer than when you have authority over a particular activity.
When attempting to drive change throughout the organization, enterprise CIOs must look at where their influence points are, who their partners are and how the authority of their partners may come into play. CIOs need to spend their time influencing others and should leave much of the management of technology to their chief deputy. Understanding the difference between leadership and management will allow CIOs to get more done and hopefully stay on the job a little bit longer.
