A CIO Change Leadership Strategy Framework for the Digital Era: The CIO's Direct Reports

A CIO Change Leadership Strategy Framework for the Digital Era: The CIO's Direct Reports

This IDC Perspective describes what's different about change leadership in the digital era, provides examples of goals of CIO/direct-report change leadership, and provides advice on formulating strategies to improve the effectiveness of change leadership. This document is the final in a series of three that have focused on CIO change leadership with, respectively, the board of directors (see A CIO Change Leadership Strategy Framework for the Digital Era: The Board of Directors, IDC #US50350923, forthcoming), their LOB executive peers (see A CIO Change Leadership Strategy Framework for the Digital Era: LOB Executives, IDC #US50351023, forthcoming), and the CIO's direct reports. CIOs garner many of the headlines in articles about digital business change leadership, but their direct reports do much of the heavy lifting in digital and organizational change. The CIO's team must formulate the digital change vision, mission, and goals; engage and motivate its workers to embrace and execute the vision; and help create a "flywheel effect" that sustains continuous change. And CIOs have to do that while managing the day-to-day operations of their departments and teams. That makes CIO/direct-report change leadership a critical linchpin in achieving organizational and digital change. "Digital business requires IT executives to change the way they think, act, work, and lead change initiatives," says Marc Strohlein, adjunct research advisor with IDC's IT Executive Programs (IEP). "As leaders, they must spearhead those changes by creating change leadership strategies that serve as primary drivers of change."

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