Martha Heller

As a CIO, you are the first to step into traffic, to stand alone during a period of change before people come on board. That takes personal courage...Traditionally, in IT, we like to please. But IT is not a popularity contest; it's a reality show where we often have to deliver tough information...Being a CIO means having the courage not to cut corners to please a stakeholder and delivering the hard message that this is not a risk we're willing to take.

Lately, however, I have changed my thinking on this. I have a new Greek mythological figure in mind for the CIO; Cassandra. Cassandra made the critical relationship-building error of spitting on Apollo. As retaliation, Apollo gave Cassandra the power of prophecy, but also the curse of never being believed. (Cassandra eventually goes insane, by the way, so you all have that to look forward to.)

But moving from enabling the business to being the business is challenging work. It means changing governance models, organizational structures, delivery methodologies and hiring practices. It means transforming IT people from technologists to strategists, from constructing hard lines around IT to creating an environment devoid of organizational boundaries, and from clamping down on employees attempts to develop their own technology to embracing end-user innovation. It also means driving change in the most difficult of all arenas: the mindset, the psyche, the most deeply held ways that we understand our jobs, our success, and our professional identity.

CIOs, more than any other executive, have an end-to-end view of how the business works and the tools to turn that view into insights. CIOs can see endless opportunities for improvement and change.

Someone once told me that, when your operations are not good, you should not talk strategy," says Iyer. "Fair enough. But the opposite is also true. If operations are good, then you must talk strategy.

But here's the rub: looking across silos for opportunities to improve capabilities is one thing; creating a vision for how to seize those opportunities as another. Communicating that vision effectively is harder still. But the real work, the deepest work, is in the deciding to stick your neck out in the first place.

The CIO is that one leader who can see everything that is happening within the organization," says Victor Fetter, CIO of LPL Financial. "The CIO looks at every transaction and every customer service experience that takes place on the digital platform. With that unique perspective, the CIO understand where efficiency is happening and where it is not. The position, at its most basic level, has moved from someone who just accepted the way things were, to someone who uses that visibility to create aha moments for all leaders across the organization.

If you want to have an impact in your company, have a point of view that sometimes challenges the status quo but do the work required to make the point of view an informed one.