5 Steps to Become Senior IT Leadership (Hint: These Promotions Don’t Just Happen!)

Do you want to make it to senior management? Would you like to be CIO some day? For many IT people, the answer is a loud “yes!” And no wonder— These positions bring with them increased respect, compensation, and opportunities to make an impact in the organization.

Unfortunately, many IT pros go about aiming for these top slots in the wrong way. They narrowly focus on a technical and functional competency where they feel comfortable. While this can lead to increased responsibilities as you become more senior, it rarely provides a quantum-leap towards the broader management positions ambitious IT pros desire.

Lots of top level IT leaders approached their career path differently

For starters—they moved around a lot. Few senior IT leaders (and even fewer CIOs) spent their entire career in a single corner of IT before they received their top position. More often, they spent a little time in every business-facing corner of IT, and assumed greater responsibility with each jump. By working within as many different corners of IT as possible as they climbed the ladder, they developed trust-filled relationships with a broad range of tech and business concerns, and they instilled within themselves a broad understanding of how IT and the business worked together as a whole.

These IT leaders exhibited a high level of curiosity, and an almost restless desire to explore within the company they worked at. And—perhaps most important of all—they proactively pursued those new opportunities instead of assuming their technical or functional specialization alone entitled them to a top-level leadership position.

If you’re looking to advance to broader, higher levels of IT leadership, consider following their lead and take a few unconventional steps:

1. First—and most important—take command of your own personal and professional education. Don’t wait to be taught what you need to know to advance in your organization. Some bosses will take your development seriously, others won’t. You can’t bank on it. Instead: read constantly. Identify the skills you need and find the curriculum that will teach it to you. Seek out training opportunities and enroll in them. (Even if you have to pay for them out of pocket.) Constantly add to your personal database of skills to lay the foundation for your career growth.
2. If you don’t already, consider working for a larger company. The larger the company you work for, the more opportunities you’ll find to hop around and work within many different corners of IT.
3. Actively pursue positions within different departments. If you’re good at what you do, then chances are the company is going to want to keep you there. Be active about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone on your own.
4. Keep an ear open for new positions in departments you’ve never worked within. Pop in regularly with HR if you aren’t sure what’s available to you.
5. Make each move both vertical and lateral. Don’t jump from one technical skill-set to another without making any forward progress. Aim for a career advancing move with each push in a new direction.

A caveat: while this pattern has been followed by many IT leaders, there are no guaranteed routes towards top-level IT leadership positions…. but the surefire way to stay in the same place you started is to never reach for else.