Wiegman, whose bonus increased significantly this year due to major company growth, exemplifies how pay incentives and effective collaboration between business and IT can combine to affect the bottom line.

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“Executive management sees the value in how technology can be leveraged as a competitive advantage,” Wiegman says. “And for me, the biggest sense of satisfaction comes from knowing that I am materially contributing to building our company. The projects I lead and the performance of my team has a direct impact on how well the company succeeds in reaching its goals.”

IT is proving central to turning around the outlook at many companies. Profit-sharing now tops the chart of bonuses for senior IT managers, who were 12 percent more likely to have received a slice of the pie this year than last. For many, longstanding efforts to align business and IT are finally paying personal dividends.

For others, however, especially those in down markets, having significant portions of pay tied to incentives can sting -- even as IT sings.

“I have continued to build additional revenue for the organization through technology-related initiatives in our developments and homes,” says a vice president of IT at a large homebuilder. “Even so, the glum outlook of the market did not recognize the additional revenue streams in my compensation.”

In fact, despite the windfall across upper IT ranks, only 31 percent of senior managers received an increase in bonus pay this year. Moreover, they were 12 percent less likely to have received a bonus this year than in 2006, the lowest mark in four years. The upshot? Tremendous growth (203 percent) for the minority of tech execs cashing in on incentives; status quo, or worse, for the majority.

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This disparity results in frustration, especially among those who feel IT has been neglected to the detriment of the enterprise as a whole. “Upper management has focused all its efforts on the business groups and removed itself of any responsibility for effective IT solutions,” the homebuilder’s VP of IT says, underscoring the uphill battle faced by many IT execs.

For many, the continuing need to convey the message that IT is a core competence -- vital for attaining competitive advantage -- means an overhaul in mindset, one that requires meeting the business side halfway.

“The most important skills going forward are not technical, but a willingness and ability to understand the business needs and environment,” GlobalSpec’s Wiegman says. “You can’t just be a technology order taker. You have to work with the various lines of business and figure out where, if, and how technical solutions can be used to help achieve goals.”

With that recommendation in mind, senior managers should expect the trend of business literacy for IT to continue. As our survey shows, this year’s crop of top tech managers is 52 percent more likely to hold an M.B.A. than a master’s in computer science, up from 39 percent last year.