Posts Tagged ‘skills’

Are You Cut Out To Be An IT Leader?

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

There Are 5 Skills That You Need To Be A Product Manager

There Are 5 Skills That You Need To Be An IT Leader

Jeff Vance over at Sandstorm Media talked with me to get some inputs for an article that he was writing for the Project Manager Planet site. Yeah, yeah – I know that we’re IT Leaders not Project Managers. However, Jeff did a very good job of capturing a lot of what makes our job so hard to do.

Check out his article which is called 5 Signs You’re Not Cut Out to be a Project Manager. Give it a read and every time you see “Project Manager” just mentally replace it with “IT Leader” and it’ll work out for you.

Jeff has included the classic story of Charles Pellerin, NASA’s director of Astrophysics for the Hubble space telescope program which should serve as a good reminder for all IT Leaders that you should never give up trying to make something better…

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

So what do IT Leaders actually do? Generally I’d agree with you if you answered something like “create IT solutions“; however, I’ve been giving this some thought and I think that we’re missing the mark if that’s our answer…

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in IT manager | No Comments »

Grow Your Career – What IT Leaders Need To Do

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

IT Leaders Are Responsible For Growing Their Career - But Not Like This!

IT Leaders Are Responsible For Growing Their Career - But Not Like This!

As though the job of being a IT Leader was not hard enough, there’s also that added responsibility that you have to manage your career. With all of the turmoil of the past couple of years, it’s now more important than ever for IT Leaders to find the time to tend to this task.

Growing Your Career – It’s Like Another Job

The #1 thing that IT Leaders need to realize is that it is no longer good enough to sit passively by and hope that your career will take you to someplace that you want to be. Instead, you need to take charge of it. Yes, this means that there is more work for you to do. However, you will benefit from all of the time and effort that you put into this task.

It’s Networking Time

For some odd reason too many of us shun what is probably the most effective career management activity – networking. Study after study has shown that most high paying professional jobs are found through networking. What this means for you is that you need to always be growing your network.

This might cause you to rush out and try to build the largest LinkedIn network that you possibly can. Don’t do it. Deborah Bailey who is a career and employment coach, points out that the quality of the members of your professional network is far more important than quantity of people that you have in the network.

Get Uncomfortable

We all chose to have a career in IT for a bunch of reasons. One of these was because we knew that IT was a dynamic field – it’s always changing. What this means for you is that you can’t sit back and assume that the skills that you have today (both hard and soft skills) will be what anyone will be looking for tomorrow.

Instead, you need to get up off your butt and go out and learn something new. This ability to be constantly seeking out new things to learn will be what keeps your skills fresh and makes sure that you are always employable.

Big Picture Stuff

This might be the trickiest part of the program – learning to keep your eyes open. It’s all too easy to focus on what’s going on inside of your company or even within your industry. However, the key to long-term career success is to stay on top of what’s going on in the big world and understand how it may impact your company and your career.

Final Thoughts

You have no control over what others may do to your career in the future. However, you have complete control over what you do to prepare your career for the future. You are going to need to be proactive (start doing something TODAY) and you are going to have to be willing to adapt to the changes that we all know will happen in the IT field. If you can do both of these things, then you will have truly taken control of your career and you’ll be well on you way as you transform yourself from an IT manager into a true leader.

Questions For You

In the past have you actively managed your career or have you just sorta let things happen to you? How much have you increased your professional network by during this year? How did you do it? What new skills have you learned this year? What other industries do you track? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Click here to get automatic updates when
The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

If you could go to work for any company out there right now, which one would it be? A lot of us would say Google – everything that we’ve read and heard about the company makes it seem like a great place to work. However, it turns out that even Google is not immune to IT staff problems…

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in career | No Comments »

6 Management Suggestions To Help IT Leaders In Tough Times

Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Tough Times Call For Solid IT Leadership Skills

Tough Times Call For Solid IT Leadership Skills

Can it get any worse than it already is? Does anyone see a light at the end of the tunnel yet? Times are tough all over, and being an IT Leader right now is just about the toughest job out there. It would be all too easy to tuck your head down, turn off the lights, and not talk to anyone until this is all over. However, you are an IT Leader and you can’t do that.

In these tough times you need to overcome your base instincts and do what good managers should do – lead. As a reminder of just what that really means in these tough times, here are six things that you should be doing right now:

  1. Treat your employees as responsible adults. Yes, sometimes in these dark days they don’t seem to act that way, but they are. This means that you can’t boss them around or soothe their fears with made up half truths.
  2. Reach out. This means that tough times call for you to reach out beyond your normal contact groups and have more fingers that go deeper into the company. This is the only way that you are going to be able to discover what is REALLY going on. This is the information that you’re going to need to be able to communicate to your team.
  3. Practice emotional intelligence. It’s true that your team will perform better even under all of this fear and doubt if they believe that you really do understand and respect them. This means providing opportunities for everyone’s opinions to be heard.
  4. Be Fair: Tough times won’t last  forever and you’re going to need your team to stick around when they no longer have to. This means that when you have to do distasteful tasks like layoffs, you need to be open and honest about why certain decisions were made. Everyone may not agree with you, but at least they’ll understand why you did what you did.
  5. Open The Door Wider. Allow your employees to being more of themselves to work. Time are tough and you are going to be asking more from your remaining staff, you need to make it easier for them to balance all parts of their life.
  6. Enjoy Your Job: It is critical that you find some part of your job that brings you joy and happiness. Even in these tough times, you need to let others know that this one thing makes you very happy. Your enthusiasm will be noticed and it’s catching – you’ll bring everyone’s mood up.

How many of these six management actions are you currently doing? Are they being successful? Do you disagree with anything that’s on my list? Did I leave anything off? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in management | 1 Comment »

Whoops – You’ve Been Reorganized IT Leader!

Thursday, May 7th, 2009
IT Leaders Need To Take Action When A Reorganization Occurs

IT Leaders Need To Take Action When A Reorganization Occurs

So there you are, doing a great job of being the best IT Leader that you can be and all of a sudden, everything changes around you. You’ve been reorganized!

In a recession (like we are in now), reorganizations are common either before or after a layoff. Just when you though that you knew what you were supposed to be doing and what everyone else was supposed to be doing, the music plays and everything is different.

When a reorganization occurs, the worst thing that you can do is nothing. You’ve got to realize that it’s almost like starting to play a game all over again. You’re going to have to quickly adapt to this new world and as you’re doing this you are going to have to take a long hard look at the future of your job.

Eileen Gunn over at the Wall Street Journal has taken a look at what we’re supposed to do when a reorganization happens to us. She’s got some tips that just might help us out:

  • First Meetings Count: Just like a first impression, your first meeting after a reorganization can be critical. This is a time for you to be bold – ask the questions that everyone else is thinking. However be careful, your new management may not have all the answers. Don’t drill them too hard if they start grasping for answers.
  • Look Inside: This is probably the best time ever for you to sit down with yourself and do an inventory of what you bring to the new world order. You need to make sure that your skills match what your boss is looking for – if they don’t, then you are going to have to change.
  • Meet The Big Guy / Gal: If the reorganization has resulted in you having a new boss, then  you’re going to want to have some one-on-one face time with them as quickly as possible. Basically, you’re going to have to interview for your job even if they don’t ask you to do so. You need to show them what you can bring to the table so that they will know what you are capable of.
  • Deal With It: You may not be happy with the new world order that has resulted after a reorganization; however, you don’t run the world (yet). The quicker you get over feeling this way and become a valued contributor once again, the more secure your job and career will be.

Reorganizations happen for a variety of reasons and they always seem to come at the worst time – just when we almost had everything figured out. They are a part of life and these suggestions can give us the tools that we need to turn these changes from pitfalls into opportunities.

Have you been through a reorganization lately? How did you feel about where you ended up after the dust had settled? Did you change your behavior starting with the first meeting? Have you met with your new boss yet? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in career | No Comments »