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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11When a CIO or CTO takes on broader responsibility, success is no longer measured mainly by how well the technology function delivers. The executive must connect technology to enterprise outcomes, lead alongside business peers, and help the organization change how it works. Technical credibility still matters; what changes is the reach of the accountability.
What changes when a technology executive’s remit expands?
The center of gravity moves from delivering IT services and projects to helping the whole organization create value. That can mean improving customer experience, supporting revenue growth, changing operating costs, or enabling a strategic shift. Technology remains essential, but the executive must explain how capabilities contribute to those outcomes and work with the leaders responsible for realizing them.
Gartner’s October 2023 release on its 2024 CIO and Technology Executive Survey reported responses from 2,457 CIOs in 84 countries. In that survey, 45% said they were beginning to work with C-suite peers to bring IT and business-area staff together to co-lead enterprise-scale digital delivery; 43% hoped to expand their scope with additional leadership responsibilities, while 42% wanted to grow within their current scope. These are reported ambitions and practices, not evidence that every CIO’s role is changing in the same way. Gartner’s survey release also describes a range of delivery models rather than a single required structure.
The practical shift is from asking “Did IT deliver?” to asking “Did the enterprise achieve the intended result, and can it sustain it?” That second question requires technology leaders to understand business priorities, share decisions, and keep attention on impact after a system or initiative goes live.
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Why does enterprise delivery require business co-ownership?
Digital capabilities create value in the processes, products, and customer interactions where they are used. Technology teams bring architecture, data, security, and delivery expertise; business teams understand the work, customers, and operational trade-offs. If either side controls the effort alone, design decisions can become detached from the people who must adopt the capability or the outcomes it is meant to improve.
Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst Mandi Bishop put the principle this way: “To successfully lead digital transformation initiatives, CIOs must co-own efforts with business leaders to place the design, delivery and management of digital capabilities with teams closest to the point where value is created.” Gartner’s release reported that 12% of surveyed CIOs fit its “franchiser” model—co-leading, co-delivering, and co-governing digital initiatives—compared with 55% “operators” and 33% “explorers.” Gartner reported that 63% of enterprise-wide initiatives met or exceeded outcome targets under its franchise model, compared with 43% under a traditional operator model. Those figures describe Gartner’s survey and model categories; they do not establish that the model caused the difference or will produce the same result in every organization.
A separate Gartner abstract published in January 2024 said CxOs who co-lead digital delivery with CIOs end to end were 1.5 to 2 times more likely to achieve value targets than CxOs who delegated leadership to IT departments. This is an association as summarized in the public abstract, not a guarantee of results. The same abstract described four CxO profiles—abdicator, project sponsor, digital explorer, and digital leader—suggesting that peer engagement can range from limited sponsorship to active leadership. Gartner’s public abstract does not make one arrangement universally right for every company.
Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst Janelle Hill summarized the stakes: “CIO and CXO co-ownership of digital delivery is an indivisible part of enterprise – not just functional – outcome attainment.” For a CIO or CTO, peer leadership therefore means more than persuading colleagues to use a technology platform. It means making business leaders genuine partners in shaping capabilities, accepting trade-offs, and owning adoption and impact.
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Which leadership skills matter more beyond IT?
There is no single universal checklist for every expanded role. Gartner’s public materials point to a cluster of capabilities that become more important as a technology executive’s influence crosses functional boundaries. Its March 2025 leadership abstract frames executive “power skills” as important to navigating disruption, aligning teams with business goals, and pursuing sustainable outcomes; the abstract does not expose the full set of skills in its restricted report. Gartner’s public abstract supports treating these as development priorities rather than a definitive competency standard.
- Strategic thinking: connect technology choices to enterprise priorities, explain alternatives and trade-offs, and distinguish a strategically important capability from a technically attractive one. Gartner’s CTO guidance emphasizes aligning technology goals with enterprise priorities. Gartner’s CTO guidance also highlights the competing pulls of efficiency, revenue growth, and customer experience.
- Executive communication: describe a proposal in terms peers can act on—intended outcome, cost and risk, decision needed, and how impact will be assessed—rather than relying on technical detail alone.
- Collaboration and peer influence: build shared ownership with business leaders and coordinate across technology, AI, infrastructure and operations, and security teams. The same Gartner CTO abstract emphasizes collaboration across these groups.
- Change leadership: guide adoption and operating-model change as well as implementation. Gartner’s CTO abstract identifies enterprise change enablement as a leadership demand.
- Delegation: enable capable leaders to own work and decisions rather than routing every cross-functional issue through the CIO or CTO. Gartner names management and delegation among the requirements for enterprise-level change enablement.
- Self-reflection: notice where a technology-first perspective, established habits, or personal control is limiting the organization’s ability to move. Gartner’s CTO guidance includes self-reflection alongside management and delegation.
Development is most useful when it addresses a real gap in the role and is applied to live enterprise work. A course, coaching arrangement, or peer forum may help, but the evidence here does not establish a preferred provider or program. The key test is whether learning improves decisions, collaboration, or outcomes in the executive’s actual remit.
How should accountability work across a transformation?
Broader responsibility does not mean the technology executive must personally own every initiative. It means making ownership legible from strategy through execution and measurement. McKinsey’s transformation analysis describes clearer accountability at organizations reporting more successful transformations: leaders engage materially, communicate progress, and specify who owns each initiative and stage. Ownership can shift as work moves from strategy to business-unit execution, so handoffs need to be explicit. McKinsey’s transformation guidance also recommends leadership alignment, enterprise-level resource commitment, and clear criteria for continuing or stopping initiatives.
A workable accountability arrangement answers these questions before work accelerates:
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- Who sets direction? Identify the executive or group accountable for the strategic intent and its connection to company priorities.
- Who measures impact? Assign responsibility for defining baseline measures, tracking progress, and deciding whether intended value is being realized.
- Who executes? Name the business and technology owners responsible for delivery, adoption, and operational readiness—not merely the project coordinator.
- Who governs risk and trade-offs? Establish how peers resolve conflicts over funding, security, data, architecture, and operational capacity.
- When does accountability transfer? Define handoffs from exploration to delivery and from delivery to ongoing operations, including who accepts the result.
- What makes the initiative continue, change, or stop? Agree on decision criteria so investment does not persist by inertia.
Measurement should cover more than delivery milestones. McKinsey’s interview on digital transformation recommends a broad view that combines financial and operational measures with capability improvement, cultural change, and faster decision-making. A CIO can help ensure the technology contribution is visible, but the business owner should remain accountable for business outcomes that depend on changing processes or behavior.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Should one leader or a pair lead digital transformation?
There is no universal winner. McKinsey’s interview on transformation says either a single transformation leader or co-leaders pairing a technology executive with a business executive can work. In both cases, transformation needs sustained senior attention and alignment with the company agenda. McKinsey senior partner Rodney Zemmel said: “Both of those models can work. But digital transformation does really need to be a standing item at the top of the company to make sure it stays on the CEO’s agenda and to show that it’s aligned across the full company agenda.” McKinsey’s interview frames the CEO agenda as a necessary anchor, not a substitute for clear execution ownership.
| Question | Single transformation leader | Technology–business co-leaders |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns outcomes and execution? | One leader can provide a clear point of accountability; the organization still needs named business owners for outcomes and delivery stages. | Technology and business leaders share leadership; define which decisions and deliverables belong to each and how disagreements are resolved. |
| How does strategy stay enterprise-wide? | Keep the leader connected to the CEO and enterprise agenda, rather than treating transformation as a stand-alone technology program. | Use joint sponsorship and enterprise governance to align business priorities with technology choices across functions. |
| How are risk and governance shared? | Specify how the leader works with peers responsible for business operations, finance, security, and other risks. | Make shared governance explicit so co-leadership does not become ambiguous accountability. |
| How do handoffs work? | Document transfer of ownership from strategy to initiative execution and then ongoing operations. | Agree on handoffs between the co-leaders and business units, including ownership after launch. |
Choose based on the company’s leadership capacity, complexity, and ability to sustain shared decisions—not on a claim that one model is inherently superior. Gartner’s survey and McKinsey’s interview describe viable arrangements in context; neither establishes a single structure that every organization should adopt.
What does AI add to the broader leadership remit?
AI makes cross-functional leadership more visible because choices about it affect strategy, technology, finance, talent, and operations at once. In a 2026 article, McKinsey describes leadership in an AI-era organization as “a team sport,” with important decisions cutting across those functions. It assigns distinct contributions to senior roles: the CIO builds data foundations, a flexible technology stack, and vendor strategy; the CFO rebalances investment in human and technological capabilities; the CHRO supports workforce transformation; and the COO sequences domain transformations. This is McKinsey’s leadership framing, not a universal role standard. McKinsey’s 2026 article also emphasizes senior-leader engagement and visible role modeling as factors associated with successful AI implementation.
The article reports that 70% of employees say they feel personally ready to use AI, while 27% of leaders say their organization is ready to make the changes required at scale. These are figures as reported in McKinsey’s article; they should not be treated as a universal measure of readiness without fuller methodological context. For a technology executive, the actionable gap is to pair technical foundations with decisions about skills, workflows, investment, governance, and the sequence of organizational change.
Quick Recap
How can a CIO or CTO make the transition in practice?
- Reframe the portfolio around enterprise outcomes. For each major initiative, state the business result it is meant to change, who owns that result, and which technology capabilities enable it.
- Build a peer coalition before locking in delivery. Bring the business leaders closest to the value opportunity into design, prioritization, and governance; confirm their authority and contribution rather than relying on informal sponsorship.
- Set the operating model and handoffs. Decide whether a single leader or co-leaders will steer the work, then document responsibility for strategy, execution, impact measurement, risk decisions, adoption, and ongoing operations.
- Review progress with a balanced scorecard. Track financial and operational results alongside capability development, cultural change, adoption, and decision speed where those measures are relevant to the initiative.
- Practice the influence skills on live decisions. Use executive communication to surface choices and trade-offs; delegate ownership; reflect on feedback; and lead change across functions, not only within the technology organization.
- For AI, coordinate the whole leadership team. Align data and technology foundations with finance, workforce, and operational plans, and make senior leaders visibly accountable for learning and change.
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