The Next Generation: Who will fill your shoes? The CIO of BAE Systems' Customer Solutions group shares his method for encouraging and training potential succesors

My staff could look at any single day of my professional life and decide based on this that they would never want to be a CIO. They see me as the person that must answer all the hard questions when systems and processes don't work. They think my job is hard and complex, and that it appears to be nearly impossible to succeed at. This perception is widespread in the IT industry, which makes it all the more important for the current generation of CIOs to develop and maintain a robust pipeline of future CIO candidates. Being prepared to rapidly replace people in critical leadership positions is also a business imperative. Thus, we need to make the case for the CIO job to the IT and business professionals who we believe can step into our shoes. I am always looking for IT or business leaders who I think can make the jump to CIO. But it's not enough to identify them; we also have to develop them as leaders. Even when individuals say they want to be a CIO, often they don't really know what the job entails or what it could require of them. I use my CIO office to provide potential CIOs with a formal development process to support our future IT leadership needs.