Posts Tagged ‘communication skills’

3 Skills That Most IT Leaders Are Missing

Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Image Credit You Can't Be A Complete IT Leader Without These Skills

You Can't Be A Complete IT Leader Without These Skills

I’m guessing that you wouldn’t go to work naked. Then why-oh-why are you thinking about going to work as an IT Leader when you don’t have all of the skills that you’ll need to do the job correctly?

I’m not sure if this is going to make you feel any better, but it turns out that most IT Leaders are showing up for work only partially dressed when you consider what skills they are missing. Maybe we’d better have a talk about this…

Can You Communicate?

All too often, IT folks assume that good communication skills mean that you have the ability to get up in front of a group of people and deliver a speech without bursting into flames. Yes, this is good skill to have, but IT Leaders need to have more.

Remember, communication is a two-way street and not only does an IT Leader need to be able to tell others what to do, but you are also going to have to be able to listen to what others are telling you.

No, we’re not talking about having the ability to sit there and listen when someone else is talking to just waiting for them to pause so that you can start talking again. Instead, an IT Leader needs to be able to listen, process what has been said, and then ask good, pointed questions that will help get to the bottom of any discussion.

Just to round things out, an IT Leader also needs to have the communication skill that will allow them to “close” a discussion. This is when you ask a final question and then have the strength to keep you mouth closed and allow the other person to provide an answer. This is how you wrap things up cleanly.

Promote, Promote, Promote!

All too often IT Leaders seem to have a “build it and they will come” sort of attitude. They believe that if their team and by extension themselves do a good job then the rest of the company will realize it and their value to the company will increase. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

What IT Leaders need to be doing is constantly promoting both themselves and their team. Now you have to be careful here, note that I didn’t say “bragging”. The difference is subtle, but important.

One way that an IT Leader can show the value of both his position as well as his team is to become the thought leader on all things technical. By researching new technologies and then taking the time to educate the rest of the company about what they mean and how they can be used by the business in order to be more successful, both the IT leader and his team will become recognized as a valuable resource.

Make A Friend (or Two)

Within the world of IT, there is often a “loner” attitude that many of us hold: I can do it all by myself. As an IT Leader, you need to stop thinking this way and start making as many contacts as you can.

Your career will only be as strong as your network and that means taking the time to develop real relationships with as many people as possible. Not all IT Leaders have this skill.

What All Of This Means For You

If you really want to be a successful IT Leader, you’ve got some work to do. There are a set of skills that you’ll need to develop in order to be successful over the long run.

To be an IT Leader who has the ability to get things done, you’re going to have to have the ability to be a good two-way communicator. You’ll have to learn to spend your time tirelessly promoting both the your team and your value to the company. Finally, you are going to have to get good at that critical skill: networking.

None of these three skills are impossible to do. However, the key to being a successful IT Leader is to get good at doing all three at the same time…!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: Which of these three skills do you think is the most important for an IT Leader to have?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

It turns out that an IT Leader really doesn’t do all that much. I mean, they probably don’t do any coding, they don’t debug network problems, and they don’t design next-generation storage solutions. Sorta makes you wonder just exactly they do do? It turns out that most of an IT Leader’s time is spent doing scary stuff, like managing people…

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It Turns Out That Personal Skills ARE Important For IT Leaders

Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Image Credit
Sure We’re Nerds, But We Still Need To Have Social Skills

Sure We’re Nerds, But We Still Need To Have Social Skills

Why Does Hacking Still Work So Well?

So here’s an interesting question for you: in this day and age, why is it still so easy to hack into a corporate computer system? I mean we’ve had years to invest in sophisticated encryption systems and multi-step identity verification systems. The answer is surprisingly simple – the weakest link remains the people who use the systems and a smooth talking criminal always seems to be able to get the info that he / she needs out of these people.

What this realization means is that no matter how sophisticated we make security technology, it’s always going to be personal skills that we’ll be battling against. This leads to another interesting point: just exactly what personal skills do IT Leaders need to have in order to do their (non-hacking) jobs well?

IT Leaders Don’t Know What They Don’t Know

I can almost see you grimacing when you read the words “personal skills”. Technical professionals have a tendency to poo-poo these types of discussions because we view these skills as being something that can’t be measured. This means that we don’t really value them – why bother if you can’t become Cisco certified in personal skills (would that be CCPS?)

Times they are a changing and IT Leaders are going to have to change along with them. Luis Fernandez-Sanz?” href=” http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/MC.2009.329”>Luis Fernandez-Sanz has been taking a close look at what employers are looking for in IT Leaders and he’s detected a change in the requirements.

This all starts by taking a look at what skills IT Leaders often don’t bring to the table. Sure, we’re skilled technical professionals, but that doesn’t mean that we have all of the skills that will be needed to lead a team. Here’s where we often come up short:

  • Organizational abilities
  • Political skills
  • Public speaking
  • Understanding of business language and jargon

Fernandez-Sanz has found that IT Leaders are often viewed by the rest of the company as being good at what we do – solving technical problems. However, since we often work remotely from the rest of the business, we are also viewed as needing to improve our interpersonal skills.

What Social Skills Do We Need To Have?

When we sit down and try to determine just exactly what skills IT Leaders need to be working to acquire, we find some good news. Fernandez-Sanz has found that the needed skills are not unique to IT Leaders – they are the same skills that any business professional needs to develop.

Analysis of job postings for IT jobs has revealed a wealth of data. The first discovery should come as no surprise to any of us: IT is still a rapidly developing field and new types of jobs are constantly being created. Additionally, IT jobs can be classified into over 250 different areas that run from software development jobs to systems engineering jobs.

Studies of IT job postings over the past 16 years has revealed that not only is IT a growing field, it is also dynamic. It has been noted that the languages, tools, and technologies that are called for have changed dramatically over that time. Clearly this means that by entering into the IT field we have all signed up to a lifetime of constant learning.

In the area of IT leadership, the studies have revealed the top 5 personal skills that IT Leaders need to have. These results have been culled from descriptions of the skill sets that CIOs are asked to have:

  • Proactive behavior
  • Team management
  • Leadership
  • Teamwork
  • Communication skills

What All Of This Means For You

As an IT Leader, you will always be expected to be working to improve your skills. The challenge is to determine just exactly what skills you need to be working on. The technical skills that you’ll need to maintain will be constantly changing as IT moves forward.

Your real challenge will come in identifying the personal skills that you’ll need to be able to bring to the table. Although it is much more difficult to measure these skills, they are just as if not more important than your technical skills.

It turns out that the personal skills that you need to hone are the same skills that ever other business professional is working on. This won’t make your task any easier, but it certainly means that you’ll be in good company!

What do you think the most important personal skill for an IT Leader to have is?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Times of change can be difficult for everyone, including IT Leaders. We all know how hard it can be to lose your job. What this means is that we all have a basic understanding of what to do if it happens. But what if you don’t lose you job, it just changes on you. What do you do then?

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