Leaders are thinkers. But good ideas go to waste. For your idea to thrive, you need to avoid four pitfalls and traverse four avenues of idea fruition.

The decision regarding whether to return to the office won’t be answered by a number of considerations. The insightful CIO needs to take only two actions to make a wise choice.

Problems surround the CIO. Solving for the wrong problem wastes time, energy and money. Five shifts help the CIO determine real problems from presenting issues.

Most sources of outside input end up as waste. The CIO is more valuable than that; your velocity and capacity of growth depend on the source of influence. A well-led peer advisory group will give you the results you need in the time you need it.

Leaders get frustrated when they aren’t getting anywhere. That’s why leadership is more than influence; it involves knowing how to rally, craft and drive. Of the three, drive seems to be the least emphasized in modern perspectives of leadership. It’s time to recover that.

Decisions are never meant to be made in a void, and information alone isn’t education. Wisdom is the pool in which information and context swim together. Very few board members have technology experience. Less than 10% have technology subcommittees from which to draw. What is a board to do?