Recently, I was asked what makes a great CIO. I believe a great CIO is actually a confluence of innate abilities, circumstances, and character that form a highly-effective information technology executive. I'll elaborate.

With regard to abilities, leadership is among the most important abilities a CIO can possess. Too often, the role of the CIO is perceived to be manager of technology; in fact, truly successful CIOs focus on leading people and driving change, not managing technology.

An exceptional CIO can conceive and convey a practical vision for IT and then lead the organization to implement that vision. For example, it's not enough to say "Our IT department will be responsive and deliver high-quality results." A practical vision is more like "Our information technology will enable competitive differentiation for our company through measurably improved quality, service, cost, and customer satisfaction." It's a mouthful, but it's specific and measurable. Taking that example further, let's imagine that outdated technology is found to be a bottleneck in introducing new products and features. IT should step up, remove that bottleneck through improved technology and information management, and then prove its impact by objectively measuring (and heralding) results.

The best CIOs understand the key business drivers affecting their industry (for example, rapid introductions of product features) and continuously drive corresponding change in their organizations. In the insurance world, modes of customer contact have changed steadily, especially over the past five years. The most effective CIOs have partnered with their counterparts in underwriting, claims, and policy service to champion key enabling technologies, such as Web self-service, next-generation contact center systems, document management, and workflow. The same is true in banking, where IT has been instrumental in enabling secure web-based customer self-service and integrated portfolio views, among many other customer-friendly capabilities.

In health care, the challenges are remarkably diverse. Disease management and treatment protocols (and, in turn, patients) have benefited tremendously from technology. However, patient recordkeeping (that is, medical records) is still in the Dark Ages technologically. Yet a few pioneering CIOs are pushing the envelope with electronic medical records (EMR), despite the industry dynamics that make this a huge mountain to climb. Imagine the competitive advantage and goodwill that will benefit the first organization to roll out a practical EMR.

In the area of circumstances, I think most great CIOs would have to acknowledge some luck. Some companies have a management philosophy, business model, culture, market conditions, and human capital that give them an edge. Eddies and currents in the business world can make that kind of magical environment tough to maintain over time. But a CIO who is fortunate enough to work in that kind of environment—or help create it—can go from good to great.

And in the area of character, a great CIO is a person of integrity and ethics, and someone who promotes those same high standards for all of IT. A great CIO works hard to develop personal relationships at all levels of the organization and demonstrates a genuine interest in people, for they are the true lifeblood of IT.

Finally, I'll say that great CIOs might, occasionally, warrant the title of Hero. Leading an IT operation can be thankless when things get tough, and things are almost always tough if IT is living up to its potential. And of course, there's no shortage of armchair experts to complicate things. Maybe a great CIO is also a glutton for punishment.