Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are a transforming public sector leadership group. CIOs have emerged
to connect business units in an organization with information technology staff. They are the linchpin between the seemingly disparate, and often contentious, components of an organization. The potential impact of this population is high but their characteristics and perspectives have been only nominally explored. By investigating leadership within the public sector IT profession through the application of Q-methodology and use of a well-accepted competing values framework, this article contributes to both the leadership and IT scholarship. Using a sample of local government CIOs from North Carolina, Q-methodology is used to examine how individuals view and operationalize the concepts of leadership in their own work and careers. The research reveals four dominate leadership conceptualizations amongst local government IT professionals. These groupings demonstrate high variation in how IT professionals understand and prioritize leadership attributes.
Cite as:
Tufts, Shannon and Jacobson, W. 2010. “Visions of Leadership: An Examination of How IT Professionals Prioritize Leadership Attributes,” Journal of Information Technology Management. Volume XXI, Number 1. 1-1
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Shannon H. Tufts
Public Leadership