IT Manager Leadership: Two Ways To Lead When You’re Not In Charge

When I work with IT Leaders who are looking for ways to get that next promotion, I tell them that they are going to need to demonstrate leadership. This is an easy thing for me to say and a very hard thing for them to do. Complicating matters even more is the fact that IT … Read more

Recruiting Is Something That IT Leaders Need To Start Thinking About Again

It’s starting to look like the economic winter just might be getting ready to thaw. Once this happens, IT Leaders realize that they’re going to have a massive task added to their already overloaded plate – recruitment. During the economic downturn IT workers were staying put because they didn’t know what was going to happen … Read more

Making Changes To Your IT Department – 8 Things An IT Leader Should Know

Have you ever heard the phrase “When senior management doesn’t know what to do, they reorganize”? I’m not sure if this is always true, but it sure seems as though when times are tough reorganizations, restructuring, and even re-engineering are things that can happen to any department in IT. What’s an IT Leader to do … Read more

Alternate Reality Games: Games That IT Leaders Know How To Play

As an IT Leader, you’ve got some challenges facing you. You’re managing a diverse and potentially distributed work force of highly skilled and talented IT professionals. You need to find a way to keep them challenged, and yet at the same time enable them to find ways to work together. Have you considered Alternate Reality … Read more

Handling A Promotion Is Something That An IT Leader Needs To Know How To Do

It may seem a little crazy to talk about how to handle promotions during an economic downturn, but they are still happening (hey, sometimes self-promotion yields results!) Additionally, once the world economy picks up again, there will be even more of them. What’s an IT Leader who was once “one of the guys” to do … Read more

Google’s Staffing Problems Can Teach IT Leaders A Lot

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 … Read more

Your Mother Was Right: How IT Leaders Dress For Success

So if you could wear anything that you wanted to work, what would it be? Would you be showing up in shorts and flip-flops? How about jeans and a T-shirt? Well why don’t you? The answer to this question is something that we normally don’t spend a lot of time thinking about, but because it … Read more

6 Management Suggestions To Help IT Leaders In Tough Times

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 … Read more

Whoops – You’ve Been Reorganized IT Leader!

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 … Read more

IT Leader Book Review: “Lead Well And Prosper”

So how is an IT Leader supposed to keep on top of his / her game? There were very few college courses that we had to take during our undergraduate years that dealt with management (or even better, leadership). Even if you’ve gone on and gotten an MBA, precious little time is devoted to the … Read more