John Carrow, vice president and CIO for Unisys, didn’t learn to be the IT leader he is today as a computer science graduate student at the University of Illinois. Nor was it during the 16 years he spent in IT at General Electric. It wasn’t even during his five years as CIO of Philadelphia, where he helped the mayor turn around that then-bankrupt city. Rather, it was his experience jumping out of planes and working on the ground as a U.S. Army ranger in the Vietnam delta in the late 1960s. "The best training I ever had for becoming a CIO was the time I spent as a gung ho airborne infantry officer," Carrow is fond of saying.

Although there would seem to be few similarities between IT work and military operations, Carrow says the leadership and communication skills he honed as an adviser to a group of Vietnamese and Cambodian soldiers who were carrying out mobile operations, raids and night missions are what make him a successful CIO today. "I still deal with a great deal of uncertainty, just like I did back then," says Carrow from his office at the Blue Bell, Pa., headquarters of Unisys, a $6 billion computer services company. "In industry, you have to have a great deal of self-confidence, you have to be able to lead and motivate not only your IT forces but the rest of the company, and you must have the right resources to support your mission."

Some military methods have shifted since Carrow was in the Army, yet there is a great deal of military leadership theory that’s applicable outside the uniformed ranks. While command-and-control architecture remains the basis of any military organization, the branches of the U.S. armed forces have become much more flexible in recent years, pushing decision-making authority down to the lowest levels and trying to ensure that each soldier understands the larger mission. As a result, modern military leadership methods can provide valuable lessons for CIOs in any organization.

More Than a Serial Number

Current and former military leaders will tell you it’s a common misperception that the armed forces pay no attention to the individual. They say the chief lesson they learned in active duty was the importance of taking care of people -- soldiers, sailors, airmen or civilians. "The military suffers from a B-movie stereotype of hard-nosed military leaders. But in fact, they understand diversity and appreciate people for the talents that they bring to the table," says Col. Thomas A. Kolditz, head of the department of behavioral sciences and leadership at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. "More than anything, military leadership is about understanding human behavior. It’s about inspiring and influencing individuals."