It won’t be inappropriate to quote Stephen R. Covey who said, “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”

Assuming that CIOs in India are pushing the envelope to rise above merely playing the role of a technology leader, CTO Forum in partnership with Juniper Networks organised a two-city leadership event named “Climbing the Corporate Mountain: Journey to the Board” during the month of November 2010 in Bangalore and Delhi.

Breaking away from the conventional format and keeping technology aside for a moment, the sessions were purely focused on how CIOs should look at acquiring the essential skills to equip themselves for the journey to the corporate board.

While talking to the CIOs about their journey from the back office to the board room, Mike Rose, Executive VP, Service, Support and Operations, Juniper Networks and former CIO of Shell and HP warned about the common traps of enterprise IT that CIOs are mostly bolted to the infrastructure. “This is the primary reason that CIOs fail to focus on business models. Instead, the business model should drive the architecture,” he said. 

“CIOs should partner directly with the economic buyers of technology which are far different then end users,” said Rose.

Concluding his talk, Rose left the CIOs with a suggestion to be insatiably curious about their business to make an entry into the board.

While Mike still linked his talk with technology framework in mind, Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha, Managing Director of 9.9 Media and Founding Dean of Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad spoke about the other attributes of leadership drawn from his
personal experiences. Quoting Dalia Lama in the beginning Dr. Sinha said, “It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest diffculty.”

“What is the one most critical attribute/characteristic/feature of leadership/leaders,” asked Dr. Sinha to the participating CIOs. “Leadership is synonymous with breakthrough performance. While other things are important and attributes of successful leaders, what makes it most effective is ‘performance’ of the leader that is aimed at positive, sustainable step change,” said Dr. Sinha.  Dr. Sinha also advised the CIOs to ask and take risks. “One must be opportunistic. “Breakthrough achievements are contextual to opportunities and deliberate risk-taking creates opportunities,” he concluded.

A large number of CIOs who attended these sessions in Bangalore and Delhi had countless questions and points of view.