There is more to life than having a three letter acronym on your business card : COO, CIO, CEO, CTO, PDG or VP (wait, that's a two letter acronym). People that have these acronyms on their business cards are usually the ones that sit in the top of organisational tree. They are considered to be the leaders of the pack - the alpha males of the corporate jungle. But what is leadership all about? Tons of literature have been written about the subject but one of the domains that still remain undiscovered territory is that of IT leadership. Together with Peter Hinssen I am writing a book about IT leadership, business/IT alignment and IT brand equity.
Peter defines IT leadership as follows:
"IT Leadership is about IT people breaking free from the traditional Business-IT role-patterns, and pro-actively reaching out to business to inform, inspire, and change the business by leading them towards turning technology into tangible business benefits."
A good introduction to IT leadership in the 21st Century is :
Together with John Henderson, Venkatraman published one of the most influential papers on Information Technology ever appeared in the IBM Systems Journal "Strategic Alignment of business and IT strategies"
So in a way, Today's IT leaders are the Chief Executive Apes : what it takes to become a CEA is something you will discover in bookstore near you early August.