Category: Leadership and Management

Leadership is a topic that I see a lot of posts about on LinkedIn and other social channels. Frequently, it’s some quip about what leadership is or isn’t, or posts about specific behaviors that represent good leaders or bad ones alike. Everyone has an opinion on what makes a good leader or a bad one, but the truth is that there is no specific formula on what constitutes good leadership.

There are certainly basic human qualities that are important to all relationships such as humility, empathy and kindness. Lacking those can certainly make someone poor a leader, but on their own they do not ensure a successful leader. Successful leadership skill requirements vary with specific roles much like any other job. Most successful football coaches tend to be demanding task masters with strong attention to detail, while successful marketing leaders typically espouse flexibility, loose boundaries and playful environments to drive creativity. While there is no one correct way to successfully lead, specific leadership roles will typically dictate the importance of certain skills more than others.

I have always felt that leadership by example sets the bar for a good leader, but that in itself is ambiguous as well and could mean many different things to people depending on their work environment. Being the hardest worker on an assembly line demonstrates an aspect of leadership by example, but doesn’t necessarily make that person a good leader of people.

In society we tend to think of certain roles as being “leadership roles”. A drill sergeant in the military is certainly a leadership role, but are all drill sergeants good leaders? How about the volunteer Boy Scout Troop Leader or even the average high school principal? The obvious answer is…maybe. Leadership skills are definitely required to be successful in these roles, but just because an individual has been hired to perform a role doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the skills necessary to be successful.

I believe that point to be root of the issue within most of the corporate workforce today. Typically, in corporate America, people are promoted into leadership or management roles because they have become proficient within their current role. They may be an expert in technology or marketing or possess some other unique skill, and they may be one of the hardest working and most successful people in the organization. Due to their track records of success and in order to advance their careers and salaries, they are promoted into positions of leadership where they will typically have oversight over a department, a project and likely other people.

This is usually when things get a bit interesting…

We have a highly successful and proficient individual who has mastered the skills of a functional or technical role, taken them out of the role of a doer, and put them into the role of a leader. Their overall goal changes from delivering value and results through their own work to one of delivering value and results through others.

It’s been my experience that most organizations don’t even routinely provide training for this new leader, and they basically assume that their functional or technical proficiency will naturally translate into the role of leader.

For example, in the field of technology, let’s say a Senior Programmer with 10+ years of successful experience in delivering software solutions is promoted to Software Manager and is now responsible for eight resources with varying technical skill sets. As a Senior Programmer, their success criteria is derived from delivering quality code, staying up-to-date on technology, meeting deadlines and delivering innovative solutions. As the Software Manager, the same success criteria applies to their team overall, but some of their new success criteria includes representing the team in management meetings, providing strategic direction and expectations for the group and motivating and engaging the team while supporting their career growth.

As you can see, the success criteria for the individual has changed dramatically, and with little or no training or experience, what do you think typically happens? You guessed it…the individual continues to focus on the aspects of the role that they already know, such as delivering code and delving into new technology. In many cases the individual will still focus on writing code themselves because they enjoy it or may feel it is easier to deliver results on their own rather than relying on their team. This generally leads to team dysfunction and employees feeling not trusted or valued by their boss.

This example obviously focuses on technology, but similar principles apply to most any line of business from marketing to operation to sales. We’ve all experienced it – all you have to do is read your LinkedIn feed to learn about the crappy bosses that are out there. “A good leader cares about me”…”A good leader doesn’t take credit for the team”…”Bad bosses don’t set expectations and then blame me when I don’t meet them”. The list of quotes goes on and on…

Maybe it’s time that we stop blaming the bad bosses out there and focus on the lack of leadership development and leadership selection processes in corporate America. Just think of the example that I outlined earlier – we not only took a highly skilled and successful individual out of their role, which weakened our technical capabilities, but we then placed them in a role that they were either not ready for or not capable of, and ultimately drove disillusionment and disengagement through the entire team. Think of how damaging that is for the team, the department and ultimately the organization.

Maybe it’s time that we make it acceptable for strong functional or technical resources to grow and develop their careers within their areas of strength and not be forced to take on leadership roles to adequately grow their salaries. I recognize that some progressive companies do have dual career paths, but that is not the norm.  A good leadership development programming can also go a long way in helping grow leaders from within your organization, but just as importantly, we should identify the critical leadership skills for a role and develop a method to measure them within a candidate and hire or promote for those skills rather than defaulting to functional or technical expertise.

One of the worst experiences that you can have in your career is being saddled with a bad boss. It’s a helpless feeling that has lasting impact and ultimately drives many people from their jobs. If employee engagement and retention is a goal, which I believe it is for most corporations, focusing on this root problem might be a good place to start.

Then maybe we’ll stop seeing all of the “Good Leader…Bad Leader” quotes on social media.

Remember when fax machines, file cabinets, and switchboards were the backbone of business communication? It wasn’t too long ago that most technology departments were comprised of a small team of techies responsible for troubleshooting and repairs. But IT departments today are undergoing tremendous growth and rapid change, presenting IT managers with a challenge. In fact, for many companies, IT is now less of an individual department, and more of an agile force driving every facet of business. Keeping your IT team as expansive and up-to-date as necessary requires constant oversight and is met with considerable competition. Here’s what IT project managers and development managers need to know when building an effective IT team

IT Staffing: The What, Who & Why

So, what does the IT staffing process look like in the current business climate? IT skills are now desirable in many industries and across all departmental lines. That means hiring is tough- there is a huge demand and a short supply of qualified tech professionals. More and more businesses are turning to IT staffing firms to help them. Take a look at how it works.

• What is IT staffing? IT staffing companies are professional recruiters that source the best tech talent for a variety of industries, including short-term, long-term, or individual hires. They also compile entire teams, if needed, and have access to the brightest job seekers. They employ a rigorous screening process that produces candidates who best meet your requirements.
• Who uses IT staffing? Virtually every company could use a little help acquiring the best IT talent, since demand currently exceeds supply. IT managers and project managers don’t have time to heavily recruit, or even keep up with the changing trends. IT staffing agencies bring you the best web developers, network engineers, cloud architects, and database administrators, just to name a few.
• Why use an IT staffing company? IT recruiters have access to candidates proficient in all types of technology to customize your hire. They can also assemble entire teams in the time it might take you to hire a single employee. They perform all the legwork on aligning applicant experience, personality, and skills to your job listing, to weed out unqualified candidates.

The Difference Between Full-Time Employees and Contractors

When it comes to staffing your IT team, you’ll need to decide whether to hire full-time employees or independent contractors, or even a combination of the two. It’s a great time to work in the IT industry, since applicants have multiple opportunities. So, it’s important to hire a team that aligns with your company’s schedule, workload, and budget.

Full-Time IT Employees- Full-time employees are hired to work a set schedule of hours per week and may be entitled to medical or government benefits. They often require on-the-job training and paid vacation, sick days, maternity, or medical leave. Some full-time employees have opportunity for promotion or retirement funds.

• Risks- The changing industry means their jobs aren’t entirely safe, and they lack the versatile experience that comes with contracting at different job sites. Opportunities to advance may be limited, and time off may be hard to come by. It’s also difficult to keep current with emerging technology while holding a full-time position. They aren’t able to work seasonal hours or periods of growth without being paid overtime.
• Benefits- FTEs are able to form more lengthy relationships with coworkers and become experts in their particular field. Some enjoy a sense of stability and value and may receive perks like health insurance and networking opportunities.

IT Contractors- IT Contractors are hired on an as-needed basis, to fulfill a specific job. Some jobs may last a day, while others go on for months, or even turn into long-term hires. Contractors typically set their own rates and hours and have a more flexible schedule, with a wider breadth of experience. They often work with a staffing agency to secure frequent employment and enjoy selecting the jobs that appeal to them.

• Risks- Contractors must cover health costs on their own, and can lack a connection with your team. They have to be looking for the next job at all times, which can be daunting without a staffing firm. They often charge a higher rate than FTEs, but it usually comes with broader experience, as well.
• Benefits- IT Contractors can fill in necessary gaps whenever and wherever you need them. They aren’t subject to a 9:00-5:00 schedule and don’t require costly extras like benefits, overtime, or paid time off. They help insure that there is no downtime in your company, even when staff members are away. With the ever-changing nature of technology, your growth may be hard to control. Hiring trained contractors to work on projects as needed is more efficient and cost-effective than bringing your whole staff up to speed. Contractors also work with a sense of urgency and a desire to please, since they rely on referrals and repeat customers.

Solutions to the Top 5 IT Manager Pain Points

Whether you’re staffing a permanent team or heading up a short-term project, IT hiring presents several challenges for managers. It is an applicant’s market in the IT industry, making it tough to attract and obtain the top talent. Here are five of the challenges managers face, and ways to overcome them with the help of IT staffing firms.

1. Recruiting top talent- IT help is in high demand across every industry. It’s challenging to not only locate but acquire the best of the best, with so many others vying for their attention. The solution is to let an IT staffing firm seek them out and attract them using their industry insight and reputation to boost the candidate’s interest. With multiple platforms of communication and countless connections, IT staffing groups reach the broadest audience.
2. Finding a fit- It’s important that your employees have compelling resumes, but it’s also essential that they fit your specific needs. Applicants might know how to sail through an interview with you- providing stock answers of what they think you expect. But staffing firms are experienced in selecting an actual match for your team. They sort through the pile of applicants and present you with only the people you’d be interested in hiring.
3. Employee retention- With so much to choose from in IT job listings, it’s easy for employees to jump ship. If you hire someone who’s not passionate about your company’s goals or is itching to advance too quickly, it might cause unnecessary turnover. IT staffing companies know how to select employees that are in sync with your purpose and mission. They are also experts at placing contractors in positions for exactly as long as you need them. Turnover is costly for companies, so contracting is a safer bet for IT hires.
4. Managing growth- Technology is a burgeoning field, growing by unpredictable leaps and bounds. By the time IT managers hire and train a full-time employee, their skill set is practically outdated. In order to keep up with IT needs, managers need to partner with a firm who supplies them a steady stream of contractors to fill in the gaps. An employee who arrives on day one trained and ready prevents downtime and loss of revenue.
5. Lack of time- Whether it’s time to train, time to interview, or time to lose, managers are constantly short on time. When you need an employee immediately, there’s no time to be picky. This leads to eventual firing or quitting if an employee is improperly screened. Let a professional staffing firm save you time and reduce that risk by taking the job off your hands.

Your IT team might be the most important component of your company today. Everything from marketing, to data storage, to communication is now fueled by IT skillsets. The needs are evolving and demand is high, but you want to hire quality candidates who will promote your brand, not just fill the spots. The best way to attract, obtain, and retain the strongest team is to partner with an IT staffing firm who knows how to get the job done.

Employee engagement is a familiar topic to most anyone involved in leadership, whether you manage a small team or run a large corporation.  Engagement is hugely important for any type of organization because it is ultimately your people that comprise who you are as a company.  If your team is not adequately engaged, it becomes very difficult to represent your brand or your business in the manner that you prefer. As an example, you can represent yourself as the most customer-focused company on the planet, but if your customer service rep who answers the phone is not feeling particularly “customer- focused” when the phone rings, the person on the other side of the call probably isn’t going to be experiencing your brand in the manner that you intended.

Now, many people much smarter than me have spent significant time and energy defining employee engagement, developing tools to measure it and building action plans to help improve it. There are also very large consulting organizations built around helping other large corporations manage their employee engagement efforts. However, in my simple view, employee engagement really comes down to how much passion each individual employee embodies in representing the company they work for, every day.

Communication is Important, but is it Enough?

One of the most important factors in any relationship, business or personal, is communication. As leaders, it is hugely important that we communicate our vision, our mission, our values and even our policies to our employees so that they know exactly who we are as a company, and what we expect.  Unfortunately, defining and communicating all of these is not nearly enough to drive employee engagement. No, engagement is driven more by actions than words.

Ultimately, I believe the things leaders typically never hear about within their organizations impact employee engagement more than the high-level vision and cultural statements they espouse. What do I mean by “things they never hear about”? As a leader of an organization, the larger the entity, the more layers that it has and the higher you sit within the structure will directly impact how much you actually know about the details of what is really going on within that organization.  In other words, the further you are from the people who actually do the work, the less likely you are to know what things are truly affecting those people and their engagement.

Frequently, it is the seemingly small, under the radar frustrations that people experience every day that have the most impact on their engagement.  The cumulative effect over time can have lasting impact if not resolved.

Real Life Engagement Crushing Examples

• The mid-level manager who micro-manages their team and never acknowledges anyone’s work, but is quick to take credit for team success
• Valueless inefficient processes that do not support the greater good, but suck up time and energy simply because “it’s the way we’ve always done it” or “this is what the Director wants”
• The people on “in-house retirement” who never appear to do, produce or respond to anything, but have been around for years
• The workaholic leader who expects everyone to be workaholics like them, even though they will tell you they do not.  Actions speak louder than words…stop sending emails on Sunday morning
• The “ladder climber” who manages up very well, but leaves a wake of bodies behind them
• Politics that get in the way of doing what most everyone knows is right
• The “pain in the butt” team member who no one wants to work with because everyone wants to avoid the misery…including their boss who will not manage them
• The internal departments that are known by everyone to be roadblocks to productivity. They vary within organizations, but most have them
• The peer who sucks at their job and the manager’s method of dealing with them is to pass their work on to someone else to pick up the slack

I could go on and on, but you understand what I am talking about, and I guarantee you have all had similar experiences at one stop or another.  Many of these are items that would likely never garner the attention of senior leadership because they have neither the focus nor desire to manage down to these levels, but that does not make them unreal or less impactful.  Unfortunately, allowing these types of issues to persist over time can send a message that leadership does not care or is simply out of touch.

A Potential Solution

This brings me to my main point: I believe the only way to truly build a strong level of employee engagement is through a culture founded in empathy. A company culture that cares about employees nearly as much as they care about profits, and demonstrates it through actions, not just words. We have all heard leaders say something like “our strength is our people,” or “our people are our most important asset,” but rarely does the work experience actually feel that way.

Culture Change Starts at the Top

I recognize that it is not easy to change culture, and there will always be conflicting opinions, but a focus of self-interest will never move the needle on employee engagement. It is never too late to change, but it all starts and ends at the top, as our actions speak the loudest. Updating our value or vision statement is not going to get it done. If our employees are truly our greatest asset, maybe we should stop talking about it and start demonstrating it in the way that we manage and run our organizations.

Working remotely has become the new normal for many companies, and as a result, IT teams now have to manage their team from afar. It can be difficult for IT Managers to keep their team on track and productive when working remotely, but it is not impossible. Here are some tips for leading your IT team in a remote environment.

Communication

It all starts with communication and with a remote team, communication becomes even more vital.  Standup meetings, regular one-on-one checkpoints and frequent team meetings are all effective steps to bridge new communication gaps.  It is a careful balance to not over meeting your team, but hugely important to stay close.

Set Clear Expectations

It is important to set clear expectations for each team member early on. This includes outlining the tasks that need to be completed and establishing deadlines for those tasks. Additionally, it is important to provide feedback on the progress of each task so that the team can be held accountable for their work. By setting clear expectations from the start, you will ensure that your team members understand what is expected of them and how their performance is being evaluated.

Establishing Processes

It’s important to establish processes for how your IT team works together while in a remote environment as well as what type of communication needs to occur between members of the group. Determine which communication tools will work best for your specific needs and provide training on how to use them effectively. Create guidelines for how decisions get made in the group and ensure everyone understands their role within it so there is no confusion about who is responsible for which tasks or decisions at any given time. Establishing processes like these will help ensure that everyone is on the same page throughout a project’s duration, no matter where they are located physically.

Building Trust with Your Team

Trust is key when managing an IT team in a remote environment. To build trust with your team, be sure to set clear expectations and provide frequent feedback about each individual’s performance. You should also make yourself available to answer questions or address any issues that may arise. Encourage open communication within the team and let them know that they can come to you if they need any help or guidance. Establishing trust will help ensure that your team remains motivated and productive even when working remotely.

Encourage Collaboration

One of the biggest challenges that comes with managing a remote IT team is encouraging collaboration among its members. To do this, you should set up regular video conference calls where everyone can discuss current projects and pitch ideas for future ones. You should also establish channels such as Slack, Teams or email threads where people can easily communicate with each other about any issues or questions they may have. By creating an environment where communication and collaboration are encouraged, you will foster a culture of innovation and productivity within your IT team.

Use Technology Wisely

Technology has made it possible for companies to manage remote teams effectively without having to be physically present at all times. However, it is important not to rely too heavily on technology when managing your remote IT team; while tools such as project management software can help keep track of tasks and deadlines, they cannot replace face-to-face interaction between managers and their teams. Whenever possible, try to schedule video conference calls instead of relying solely on emails or online messages; this will ensure that everyone feels connected and part of the same group despite working remotely.

Conclusion:

Managing an IT team in a remote environment requires patience, communication, and strong leadership skills; however, if done correctly it can lead to better collaboration between managers and their teams which in turn leads to higher productivity levels overall. By setting clear expectations from the start, encouraging collaboration among your team members, and using technology wisely when communicating tasks or ideas, you will be able to successfully manage your remote IT team without having to be physically present at all times.