Go beyond the walls of IT and learn the business.

IT leaders who want to move up must become business-savvy. Not just so you can talk the talk. Without understanding business users' work lives, it's impossible to deliver optimum technology solutions.

Marc Probst, CIO of Intermountain Healthcare, credits much of his own success with understanding how IT fits into his end users' work processes. He says that IT staff who want to climb the ladder must also "become intricately involved in other areas of the business." To get intimate knowledge of nurses' and doctors' challenges and how IT can solve them, he meets with the medical staff every week, even accompanying them on rounds. He also makes it a point to educate them on the technology. His philosophy on the subject to his staff is clear: Get involved with business users. "Go door to door," he says. "Meet with them and their teams."

Jackson also considers such advice crucial. "IT affects every department within city government, so we need to understand how those departments work and how best to deliver tech service that meets their needs." He says he wants his team to "give the customer some tool they may not even have thought of, that they can look at it and say, Wow, I'm glad we came to you." That's only possible, he says, if you understand how other groups are run and the challenges they face. Developing such a rapport also helps discourage the tendency of business users to create a shadow IT department. "If you don't solve their problems with good solutions, they will go around you," he says.

Understand the organization's structure and goals.

If you want to move up the ladder of success, you need to create strategic IT. To do that, you need to know what top management values. "Every company has a culture," says McNamara. "And those cultures reward different things."

Key to moving ahead is knowing what to prioritize. This means, for example, knowing which projects to volunteer for and how to promote them to those above you. "Knowing what the business defines as valuable is increasingly important the higher up you go," says Murphy. "So you've got to understand goals, and how IT can be used to achieve those goals." He recommends not just looking for ways IT can create value but also being responsive when opportunities present themselves.

One place where this comes into play is the IT budget. "Managing IT like a P&L is key to moving up," says Probst. IT should be adding value and helping differentiate the business. However, that's not possible if an IT leader's goal is simply saving money. Build into that budget what you need to do to create value. "Of my direct reports, 80 percent do that," says Probst.