Career path to CIO

When setting out to achieve a career oriented goal, it seems like a logical step to sit down and work out what your career progression will look like in order to achieve that goal.  Since I’m sure that I am not the first person who has decided that they would like to move from a technical role into the upper levels of IT management, I thought it wouldn’t be hard to find what that career path from a technical role to the CIO would look like.  Unfortunately all my searching seemed to come up with were stories of people who went from a technical role, to some sort of management role, and then became CIO, or simply a list of the 5, 8, or 10 skills needed to be a CIO.

If I want to progress my career in the school system, the military, or even the public service, there is a set path of progression up through the ranks that can be mapped out.  So why then is it so hard to find a simple path to the position of CIO?  The answer lies in the fact that from the top down, no two IT departments have the same organizational structure.  The CIO may have a place in the boardroom reporting directly to the CEO, or they may be like my current employer where the CIO reports to the COO, or IT may still fall under the finance department.  There may be multiple C-level IT executives with the recent invention of the Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Chief Digital Officer (CDO).  A smaller organization may only have a single layer of management below the CIO, or there may be many layers of management with a convoluted organization structure, such as Cisco, who in August last year were reported to have 419 presidents and 2,420 directors.

So does this mean that those articles where people somehow got into management and then rose to the level of CIO is the true path to follow?  Yes.  And no.  While it is the case that someone in a technical role will most likely have to weave a path through the various levels of IT management, there is nothing to stop the business from hiring a non-IT person for the CIO role, such as David Weymouth who was named as Barclays CIO after he was COO of Barclays’ business banking division.  In fact there are numerous debates raging online regarding whether the CIO should come from a technical or a business background, which will likely be a topic for a future post.

Since there is no set career path to become a CIO, I’ll provide what I see as some logical steps to take in order to reach an executive management role in IT from the point of someone that is currently in a technical support role.  Although I’ll cover this in more detail in future posts, the most important thing to remember when seeking a promotion is that you will not be promoted on the promise that you will perform at a higher level, you must demonstrate that you can do your current job well while displaying some of the qualities necessary for the higher position, bearing in mind that the management and leadership skills required will be different at each step.

Step 1 - Team Leader

The team leader’s position adds some managerial responsibilities to what is essentially still a technical role.  On the management side, a team leader will be responsible for the correct resourcing, such as managing rosters, managing and improving technical processes, and be the point of communication between the team and management.  A team leader drives performance on the technical side through leading by example and coaching or mentoring junior members of the team.  In an organization where a team leader position does not exist, you need to not only stand out technically, but be proactive in seeking responsibility and taking any opportunity for greater engagement with the business.  Examples of this would be to take responsibility for the delivery of projects and working with other departments to ensure that the project will meet or exceed the business requirements.

Step 2 – Junior manager

At this level you may be the manager of a service desk or a small team, such as a team of SysAdmins.  While this is likely to be a hands-off managerial role, you will still be expected to have a deep technical knowledge and be capable of mentoring junior members of the team.  At this level the emphasis is more on the management function rather than leadership: implementing strategy rather than developing strategy.  A junior level manager is focused on making effective use of resources, planning, budgeting, controlling and problem solving.  A junior manager may be responsible for delivering small projects delivering value to one or two business units.

Step 3 – Senior manager

At the senior management level you may be in charge of a large team or a number of teams, such as an IT infrastructure manager or operations manager.  Senior managers are expected to both assist with the development of strategy and to drive the implementation of the strategy as well.  Senior managers require less of a specialized technical knowledge, rather they need to have a broader base of technical knowledge as well as strong connections to the business in order to ensure that the services that IT delivers assist the overall business to achieve its objectives.  Senior managers would be responsible for delivering large projects that will deliver value to the entire business.

Step 4 – CIO/Executive manager

The number of executive managers will often depend on the size of the IT department.  In a smaller IT department this may simply be the CIO, or in a larger organization it may include a number of C-level executives along with a number of IT directors or presidents.  The executive level of management is skewed towards the leadership function, rather than the management function, responsible for establishing an IT strategy that is designed to assist the organization to achieve its business objectives and to motivate, inspire and align people in order to deliver on the strategic vision.

While there is no set career path, hopefully the above steps have provided you with an idea of the career steps that can be taken in order to reach the position of CIO.  Keep in mind that there is no single path to take and the path will vary based on an organization by organization basis.  In future blogs I intend to cover in more detail the steps that I am taking to reach each level of management along with discussions on the management and leadership skills needed at each level of management and how they differ.