Not Your Typical Leader? How Perceptions of CIOs Compare to Other Members of the Top Management Team

Abstract

In this paper, we examine chief information officers’ (CIO) perceptual profiles relative to other top management team (TMT) members. CIOs’ profile reveals that decision makers perceive them as less authoritative and less socially adept, important traits for strategic leadership. Decision makers also perceive them to have less in common with successful business leaders than either chief finance officers (CFOs) or chief marketing officers (CMOs). These findings highlight important differences in the way that decision makers perceive CIOs relative to their top management team colleagues and shed light on a possible reason for some challenges that CIOs frequently face in organizations.