Information System Leadership Roles

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader". A famous quote from the 6th President of the United States of America. A great country comes from a great leader. Leader is someone who has the capacity to lead or guide to his followers or disciples. A leader is not a boss. The dfference between a leader and a boss is, the leader utilizes power and the boss uses force.

According to Petter Gottschalk (2001), Information Systems (IS) Leadership Roles have undergone fundamental changes over the past decade. Despite increased interest in recent years, little empirical research on IS managers has been done. This article presents results from a survey in Norway. The survey collected data on general leadership roles such as informational role, decisional role and interpersonal role, as well as on specific IS leadership roles such as chief architect, change leader, product developer, technology provocateur, coach and chief operating strategist.

Information system (IS) leadership is a critical area for many organizations because of their increasing dependence on ISs both for operational stability and for enablement of process innovation and business strategy. IS Leadership is distinctive from leadership in general because the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is expected to combine IS technical skills with an in-depth understanding of the organization across all functions from operational to strategic. Thus, unique leadership challenges arise due to the technology/business interface. The breadth of the IS Leadership role implies that IS Leadership research needs to cover a wide range of topics concerning the role and characteristics of the CIO, the CIO's interface with the top management team, and the CIO's organizational impact. This essay discusses the distinctive aspects of IS Leadership, identifies the dominant themes in prior IS Leadership research,and introduces five papers on IS Leadership in this issue. ( Karahanna, E.; Watson, R.T.; Engineering Management, IEEE Transactions on; Volume 53, Issue 2, May 2006 Page(s): 171 - 176)

A Canadian professor and mechanical engineer named Henry Mintzberg wrote a thesis for his PhD degree focusing on the habit and time management of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). According from http://www.provenmodels.com/88/ten-managerial-roles/mintzberg, to describe the work life of a CEO, Mintzberg first identified six characteristics of the job: (1) Managers process large, open-ended workloads under tight time pressure - a manager's job is never done. (2) Managerial activities are relatively short in duration, varied and fragmented and often self-initiated. (3) CEOs prefer action and action driven activities and dislike mail and paperwork. (4) They prefer verbal communication through meetings and phone conversations. (5) They maintain relationships primarily with their subordinates and external parties and least with their superiors. (6) Their involvement in the execution of the work is limited although they initiate many of the decisions.

Henry Mintzberg also stated also that there are three general leadership roles;

• Informational Roles
• Decisional Roles
• Interpersonal Roles

Informational Roles. By virtue of interpersonal contacts, both with subordinates and with a network of contacts, the manager emerges as the nerve center of the organizational unit. The manager may not know everything but typically knows more than subordinates do. Processing information is a key part of the manager's job. As monitor, the manager is perpetually scanning the environment for information, interrogating liaison contacts and subordinates,a and receiving unsolicited information, much of it as a result of the network of personal contacts. As a disseminator, the manager passes some privileged information directly directly to subordinates, who would otherwise have no access to it. As spokesperson, the manager sends some information to people outside the unit.

Decisional Roles. Information is not an end itselfl it is the basic input to decision making. The manager plays the major role in a unit's decision making system. As its formal authority, only the manager can commit the unit ot important new courses of action; and as its nerve center, only the manager has full and current information to make the set of decisions that determines the unit's strategy. As entrepreneur, the manager seeks to improve the unit, to adapt it to changing conditions in the environment. As disturbance handler, the manager responds to pressures from situations. As resource allocator, the manager is responsible for deciding who will get what. As negotiator, the manger commits organizational resources in real time.

Interpersonal Roles. As figurehead, every manager must perform some ceremonial duties. As leader, managers are responsible for the work of the people of their unit. As liaison, the manager makes contacts outside the vertical chain of command.


Henry Mintzberg identified ten separate roles in managerial work, each role defined as an organized collection of behaviors belonging to an identifiable function or position. These roles was separated into three categories.:

• Interpersonal Contact
• Information Processing
  
• Decision Making
  

1. FIGUREHEAD: the manager performs ceremonial and symbolic duties as head of the organization;
2. LEADER: fosters a proper work atmosphere and motivates and develops subordinates;
3. LIAISON: develops and maintains a network of external contacts to gather information;
4. MONITOR: gathers internal and external information relevant to the organization;
5. DISSEMINATOR: transmits factual and value based information to subordinates;
6. SPOKESPERSON: communicates to the outside world on performance and policies.
7. ENTREPRENEUR: designs and initiates change in the organization;
8. DISTURBANCE HANDLER: deals with unexpected events and operational breakdowns;
9. RESOURCE ALLOCATOR: controls and authorizes the use of organizational resources;
10. NEGOTIATOR: participates in negotiation activities with other organizations and individuals.

Mintzberg's study on the 'nature of managerial work' exposed many managerial myths requiring change such as replacing the aura of reflective strategists carefully planning their firm's next move with one of fallible humans who are continuously interrupted. Indeed, half of the managerial activities studied lasted less than nine minutes. Mintzberg also found that although individual capabilities influence the implementation of a role, it is the organization that determines the need for a particular role, addressing the common belief that it predominantly a manager's skill set that determines success. Effective managers develop protocols for action given their job description and personal preference, and match these with the situation at hand.