CIOs' successful leadership skills

Today's chief information officers must be an entirely new breed of technology leader. As IT becomes a more integral part of business operations and strategies, CIOs must find game-changing innovations and process improvements that make a real impact on the bottom line. Business executives need their CIOs to be real partners - speaking the language of the business and donning their strategist caps - not just commodity managers. Those IT leaders who fail to break out of the order-taker, utility manager mold will, simply put, be looking for a new job.

In Confessions of a Successful CIO, authors Dan Roberts and Brian Watson remind the reader that leading with technology is, first and foremost, about leadership. With their more than 35 years of combined experience working with or writing about IT leadership, the authors explained that "art of the possible" entails placing big bets and buying down risks by emphasizing people over process.

While there is no "one-size-fits-all" road to success, great leaders, like the ones profiled within this book, are marked by a unique set of qualities: passion and drive to make a positive difference; the ability to engage others to chart the future and define the path; and the paradoxical ability to maintain optimism and perseverance through difficult circumstances.