It never ceases to amaze me the number of IT leaders who believe they are ready to be the next CIO of their company, when the reality is that they are much farther away from being "ready" than they realize. I recall a client who informed me that she would be ready to succeed her CIO within two years based on a resume consisting entirely of infrastructure experience. While doing all that I could not to laugh (respectfully, of course), I challenged her to think about the business, IT and leadership skills required for the job and contrast them with her own.

In response to my last column, many of you responded to the question, "What do your direct reports need to learn to be ready for your job?" Across the board, you expressed views similar to Paul Valdez, IT Ops Director - USA, Cemex, S.A. de C.V., that it is imperative that direct reports "fully understand the breadth of the position." Unfortunately, most direct reports typically lack "the breadth of experience to assume the CIO role," a sentiment expressed by Paul Quinn, CIO of Duke Realty and Joel Dehlin, CIO for the Church of Latter-day Saints, who wrote that IT leaders "spend a disproportionate amount of time developing technical skills and not enough time on skills that would help them get into and navigate within the boardroom."

Business and IT knowledge are table stakes for success as a CIO. My client had a solid understanding of the business derived from her years with the company and her passion for the product and industry. From an IT perspective, she needed to supplement her infrastructure engineering, operations, vendor management and service delivery skills with experience in the other IT disciplines, including financial and strategic planning, demand management, project management and solutions delivery.

More subtle, but even more critical for success, is the ability to lead IT across the enterprise without being personally involved in all of the decisions. The Harvard Business Review article titled "Seven Surprises for New CEOs" said the CEO’s (or, in our case, CIO’s) "greatest influence shifts from direct to indirect means – articulating and communicating a clear, easily understood strategy; institutionalizing rigorous structures and processes to guide, inform and reward; and setting value and tone" and, "equally as important is selecting and managing the right senior leadership team." Indirect influence is founded on soft skills, including the ability to empathize, develop relationships, persuade, communicate and inspire.

The challenge of indirect leadership befuddles many newly minted CIOs as it becomes impossible to personally direct all business activities. Also, when things go awry, there is no immediate superior who will force others to get in line or break ties. IT leaders often underestimate the air cover provided by their CIO, in terms of defining objectives and setting priorities, acquiring resources, defining authorities and policies and paving the way for cross functional alignment. For IT directors, these very critical elements of success are inputs to their roles; for CIOs, these are critical outputs and constitute the most difficult aspects of the job.

Indirect leadership was a huge challenge for my client in that she typically muscled others to get her way, relying on her intellect, charm and (if necessary) positional authority to get things done. When she ran into walls, as she inevitably did, she relied heavily on her CIO to bring her functional peers in line or make the final call.

Internal succession is challenging because the CIO role is broad and development requires a greater emphasis on horizontal as opposed to vertical career progression. The succession challenge is complicated by the fact that not everyone has the aptitude or aspiration to be a CIO. In my next column, as we continue to examine how to close the succession capability gap, we will explore this question: "How do you identify those who have the aptitude and desire to be a CIO?"