Are you looking to become or move forward as a CIO? Then you’ll need to polish your business and leadership skills across a range of domains or risk career stagnation.
“CIOs really need to be conversant across just about everything the company does,” says Mike Loukides, vice president of emerging technology at technology and business training firm O’Reilly. “That kind of breadth doesn’t come easily and it’s not a specialized, single-skill job.”
We spoke with industry leaders to identify the skills that CIOs who enterprises fight over have in common. Here are the seven fundamental skills that will help you become a CIO superstar.
1. Visionary leadership — and innovative results
CIOs should be visionary, employing technology skills and insights to enhance business outcomes, says Peter Silas, CEO of medical records and billing firm Enable Healthcare.
Silas says his firm’s CIO was able to achieve assertive leadership by innovating new systems and using data effectively to improve service and efficiency. “An effective CIO in healthcare will ensure that technology is used to assist with actual outcomes, such as improved patient care, reduced delays, and data-driven prevention of illness,” he says.
A strategic leader will strive to build an innovation culture, Silas says. “At Enable, we facilitate an open teamwork environment in which all individuals across departments are invited to share their ideas with IT,” he states. “When everyone feels involved in change, the entire organization advances together.”
2. The business insights of a COO
Technology prowess alone is not enough, warns Ha Hoang, CIO at cyber resilience and data protection software firm Commvault. “CIOs must also be strategic storytellers, with a customer-forward mindset that clearly connects technological investments with measurable business outcomes.”
While a deep technical fluency and understanding of emerging technologies is essential, CIOs must also get out of their comfort zone and get to know operations, sales, and other functions to understand the full scope of the business, Hoang says. “This includes staying up to date on the latest business trends and engaging regularly with fellow CIOs, CISOs, and others in your field.”
In some respects, having strong business insight is like being a COO, Hoang says. “That’s because you have to understand the entire value chain to fully empower your team and lead the organization’s evolution.”
3. Strategic thinking — and transformative instincts
Strategic thinking separates a good CIO from a great one, says Justice Erolin, CTO at BairesDev, a nearshore software development company. “Technology is changing fast, so a leader’s ability to see around corners, align tech initiatives to business goals, and think long-term is essential,” he states.
Strategic thinking makes you proactive, Erolin says. “You start anticipating business needs, guiding digital transformation initiatives, and creating value for the company,” he explains. “That’s what the board wants and what teams need.”
Become a great listener, Erolin advises. “You shouldn’t try to be the smartest person in the room,” he says. Instead, try to build the smartest room. “Strategic thinking thrives when you’re curious, open-minded, and collaborative.”
4. Internal fortitude
While everyone talks about collaboration, technical vision, and business acumen, what really makes a successful CIO is fortitude, says Troy Gibson, fractional CIO for Centric Consulting’s CIO Services unit.
As a CIO, you’re running a business unit with CEO-level strategic responsibility, COO-level operational complexity, and CFO-level financial pressure — all while being the face of every system failure and project delay, Gibson says. “Without fortitude, you’ll crack under that pressure,” he warns. “It’s what keeps you focused on the long game when everyone wants quick fixes.”
A CIO can build fortitude simply by getting thrown into the fire, Gibson says. “Find mentors who’ve been battle-tested — not just the ones who tell you what you want to hear,” he recommends. Consider working with an executive coach who can show you how to deal with adversity. “Volunteer for the projects others avoid,” Gibson advises. “You can’t build this muscle in a comfort zone.”
Fortitude isn’t a static trait — it’s reinforced through consistent action and discipline, Gibson says. A CIO gets better at handling challenges by establishing clear principles, creating strong operational guardrails, and holding oneself accountable even when it’s inconvenient. “You strengthen fortitude by making difficult decisions transparently, owning outcomes, and learning from both wins and setbacks,” he says. “Over time, those around you will come to see your constancy as a stabilizing force for the entire organization.”
5. The business acumen of a CFO
Business acumen, alternatively known as business savviness, is highly desirable because it connects IT directly to the enterprise’s bottom line, says Nic Adams, CEO of 0rcus, a cyberthreat security firm. This attribute helps a CIO to communicate effectively with the C-suite and the board, speaking the language of business rather than technical jargon.
A CIO with strong business acumen can also effectively prioritize IT investments based on their potential return on investment and strategic impact, identifying opportunities for digital transformation that will truly move the needle for the business, Adams says. “Acumen transforms the CIO office from a cost center into a strategic value creator.”
A CIO can acquire strong business acumen by serving as a strategic partner, proactively engaging with business leaders to understand their challenges and propose technology solutions, Adams states. Obtaining this skill requires translating technical risks into business risks and consistently measuring and communicating how IT initiatives contribute to key business metrics, such as revenue growth and operational efficiency.
“Ultimately, a CIO who masters business acumen uses data to inform strategic choices and fosters a culture of innovation that solves real business problems,” he says.
6. Outcome orchestration talent
Outcome orchestration is the disciplined conversion of strategy into shipped value across people, data, platforms, and AI, says Dalibor Siroky, general manager of Plutora at Planview, a software firm that aims to improve application delivery speed and quality.
Siroky believes that orchestration can be effectively achieved by following a few simple steps. “Define a few measurable outcomes and make one leader accountable for each,” he suggests. Next, fund and govern against those outcomes. “Run a weekly cadence that exposes impediments early,” he advises.
Boards buy results, not roadmaps, Siroky states. Outcome orchestration combines strategy, funding, delivery, and adoption into a single system. “It shortens time to value and forces clear trade-offs,” he explains.
Start with two or three outcomes the business values most, Siroky recommends. “Appoint empowered product owners, spend time on the frontline every week, and remove roadblocks quickly.”
7. Solid communication skills
A CIO must be a skilled communicator. “It’s important to be able to explain complex technical concepts in ways the rest of the organization can understand and to be able to define the business value disruptive technologies like AI will bring,” says Rohit Garewal, CEO of technology consulting firm Object Edge. “They must also be able to assuage fears about the disruption and displacement that may happen with wide-scale AI adoption.”
Historically, CIOs haven’t been great communicators and business leaders haven’t been great technologists, observes Garewal. “An effective CIO must be someone who can bridge these gaps and serve as a liaison between parties in order to secure reliable technology acquisition and implementation.”
Continuously promoting ideas and building consensus is an important communication skill. Yet it can’t be a political game, Garewal says. “A CIO must have an opinion about the business direction of an enterprise as well as how technology can help achieve enterprise goals.”
8. Culture building and team empowerment
Strong CIOs know when to tackle a problem themselves and when to build alignment and empower their teams to solve it, says Keyur Ajmera, CIO at AI infrastructure developer Boomi.
Among the toughest parts of a CIO’s job, Ajmera notes, are earning trust, driving adoption, navigating competing priorities, and getting the organization aligned with change. By understanding what the business truly needs and then prioritizing accordingly, CIOs position IT as a business enabler rather than a cost center — a journey that hinges on the CIO’s ability to develop a business-aligned IT culture and to empower teams to execute.
“It also means getting comfortable saying ‘no’ when necessary, along with a reason and an alternative, rather than allowing every request to become another item in the backlog,” Ajmera says.
9. Industry foresight
Great CIOs know their business, where their industry is headed, and can see around corners.
As Rajeev Jaswal, founder and CEO of AI agent developer Argo Intelligence, warns, IT leaders can’t get stuck in the present, as technologies, use cases, and their industries will likely change rapidly in the years ahead. “A CIO can end up choosing an excellent technology for a version of the company that won’t even exist in seven years,” he explains.
CIOs should be able to describe, in plain language, what their business will look like several years from now, Jaswal says. “Ask yourself, is the technology you’re buying today built for that version of the company, or the one you’re leaving behind?”
To establish that kind of vision, CIOs need to get out of the IT department, Jaswal advises. “Sit with your sales team, listen to customer service calls, and find out which competitor keeps your CEO up at night,” he suggests. Then write down your view of where the industry is going, share it with your executive team, and revisit it every year. While you’ll be wrong about some of it, that’s okay. “Having no view is worse than having one you need to correct,” he says.
10. A business-eye view of technology risk
With technology so entwined with the business, IT leaders are fast becoming key players in managing business risk. To succeed here, CIOs need to be able to explain technology risk in business terms, says Marcus Tommy, co-founder of MALTO Cyber, a Toronto firm that helps Canadian businesses and startups pass audits. That includes knowing how to tell the CEO and the board what a failure would cost, what the fix will cost, and what the enterprise will have to give up either way.
Tommy advises CIOs to practice this on real budget requests. “For each security or infrastructure task, try writing one paragraph your CFO could read in a minute.” Next, run a tabletop incident exercise with the executive team — not only IT — and write down what the CFO and general counsel ask. “Learn to answer those questions before the next real incident,” he says.
11. Judgment under uncertainty
Based on conversations with hundreds of CIOs as part of the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, Allan Tate, the symposium’s executive director, sees judgment under uncertainty as a standout skill.
Tate notes that as AI moves deeper into organizations, CIOs must have the ability to weigh competing forms of evidence, expose assumptions, make sound decisions, and be willing to revise those decisions as new information becomes available. “CIOs that have this skill are naturally curious, can articulate complex technology into a business context, and build trust by supporting cross-functional collaboration, education, and shared accountability,” he says.
12. The nimbleness to navigate divisions and change
Having the ability to convert rapidly moving technologies, especially AI and cloud projects, into clear business value is crucial, says Srinivas Chippagiri, a senior member of the technical staff at Salesforce.
Nimbleness means standing between the engineering organization and business operations, making each intelligible to the other so that technical decisions map to outcomes leaders actually care about, such as revenue, risk, reliability, and cost.
Most failures are not failures of technology, they’re failures of translation, Chippagiri says. “Teams build the wrong thing, or they build the right thing and can’t explain its value, so it never gets funded and adopted,” he says. In today’s hectic AI cycle this tendency is sharper than ever, given the enormous pressure to adopt tools quickly — and with very little clarity on which capabilities are durable and which are hype.
Over time, nimbleness changes the CIO’s role from being a simple order-taker to strategic partner, Chippagiri says. “Technology stops being a series of isolated projects and instead becomes a coherent capability that compounds, because every investment is chosen and communicated in terms of durable value.”