The Ambiguous Role of the Cio

Clarifying the Role of Jim Barton

Clarifying the Role of Jim Barton

Barton’s most immediate challenge concerns his struggle to identify with his new role at IVK as replacement CIO. The Role of CIO is often plagued with unclear distinctions, inconsistencies, and general miscommunications. Perhaps there is so much confusion because of the way that the position evolved from a support role, to a role that incites CxO discussion about how IT can be leveraged to produce tangible competitive advantage (Austin, Nolan & O’Donnell, 2009). Barton knows that he wants to be able to manufacture value for IVK, but finds himself puzzled, with little direction from his CEO as far as the type of leadership role that he should embrace. Barton, in addition, knows little in the way of what is expected of him from his superiors, and it seems as though he doubts that anyone is able to produce an unambiguous definition of the role that he should play. Austin et al. (2009) outlined several factors that should be taken into account on Barton’s quest to determine how he will define his management style. When those factors are compared across several leadership styles in the article, it provides valuable insight into which direction Barton should take his first step as a young CIO. The most critical thing that Barton needs to understand is that there is significant reasoning behind the ambiguity surrounding his office. This article provides the means to identify the way in which his role will be able become well defined, and most importantly valuable to IVK.

Austin et al (2009) suggest heavily that information will not be able to shape strategy until digital literacy is high enough in upper management for it to be able to naturally adopt some of the IT department’s responsibilities. The article does a great job mapping the IT leadership abilities of an organization against the degree to which IT processes are mandatory for a competitive advantage. However, I don’t think that IVK...