Cultivating a Learning Mindset
The technology landscape is constantly changing, and the risk of falling behind in financial or legal services cannot be understated. As such, a learning mindset at a CIO level has become a non-negotiable for many leaders.
It’s that curiosity that engages these leaders in their everyday, forcing them to get more fulfilment out of their core responsibilities. As Martyn Atkinson, Lloyds Banking CIO, says, “My biggest development has come from roles where I'm gripping the edge of my capabilities… hanging on for dear grip.” As technology itself continues to evolve, businesses - and the technology leaders within them - cannot afford to let their skillsets stagnate. Pushing for growth at a personal level translates clearly to growth at a business level here.
Within a business context, Ian Povey, NatWest CIO, emphasises the importance of knowledge ownership. To successfully integrate and deliver real outcomes, CIOs must understand the business, not just the technology: “Invest in your own knowledge on what's happening in the business. Don't stay in the background with the supply chain and the engineers. You've got to be at the front of the shop. You've got to be willing to talk.” Technology functions have a business impact far beyond maintenance and upkeep now - impacting data governance, software strategy, networking between teams - so the best tech leaders have to keep their finger on the pulse of the rest of the business.
Sports, Wellbeing, and Resilience
High performance technology leadership is mentally demanding. Many CIOs turn to physical discipline not as a hobby, but as a strategic tool for resilience.
With pressures as high as they are in the C Suite, a sporting background is a solid foundation for mental resilience. Alexis Collins, CIO at Norton Rose Fulbright, credits her background in Division 1 Track and Volleyball for shaping her ability to cope with life at C Level: “One of the things that sport really taught me is you are going to go through so much adversity, and you cannot let it bring you down. You keep going. You find a way to be successful.” This is an essential trait not just for technology leaders. As the CIO plays a greater role in the C Suite, a resilient mindset, developed through a sporting background, becomes increasingly important when it comes to aligning with leadership pressures and ways of working at C Level.
To maintain this resilience, Martyn Atkinson even blocks out time in his diary for sports and exercise: “I am religious… around creating space for mental wellness, and that for me comes in the form of exercising… it’s just as important as reading a strategy deck.”
Great CIOs don’t view wellbeing as self care — they view it as capability building. Building this resilience enables better thinking, better leadership, and better judgement.
Connecting and Empowering Your Teams
At the heart of great tech leadership – whether you’re an Engineering Manager or a CIO – is the ability to connect people and build high-functioning teams. As David Germain, Award-Winning CIO and NED, puts it, “80% of this job is people… building effective teams who can engage with customers, engage with internal users, engage with stakeholders, developing them, moving obstacles out of the way.”
But how do you achieve that in practice? A common thread we found was that clarity, psychological safety, and authenticity are all within our CIOs’ playbooks for building teams that outperform.
James Higgins, CIO at Barclays UK Business Banking, credits this to creativity and autonomy: “You need the structure and the guardrails: Here’s where I want you to get to, here are the confines, the rest is up to you.”
But if teams are going to be autonomous, they also need to feel supported. Martyn frames it as such, “It’s genuinely trying to create a safe environment where people feel comfortable getting things wrong… If they feel you’ve got their back, they’ll be more engaged. And if they're more engaged, they're more committed.”
Similarly, Alexis has one golden rule for her teams: “We are one IT,” she says. “No throwing people under the bus.” If a CIO can get this right, they can create a culture that’s against siloes, and instead favours open communication and collaboration.
What This Means for Everyday Work
The CIO remit continues to expand; not just operationally, but strategically.
Martyn describes his responsibilities as a blend of tech strategy and business partnership: “As a leader one of my roles is to connect the outcomes that we do organisationally to the work we do on a day to day basis.”
Alexis’ remit spans operations, infrastructure, budgeting, innovation, and data transformation. But the challenge she faces most often is breaking down legacy silos to build integrated, high value data pipelines: “Law firms historically run their systems in silos… so the opportunity to leverage that data, there’s a lot of work required to pull that together.”
James’ role at Barclays Business Banking is similarly hands on. He owns the entire customer and technology journey, with a belief that tech leaders should be able to roll up their sleeves and solve complex problems directly: “If you expect as a technology leader to avoid diving into detail, you’re not going to succeed.”
