IT Leadership

Leadership is too broad a term to be comprehensively captured in a set of defined competencies or a job description. However, some core skills and personal attributes have been historically associated with leadership success across many domains. Though context-specific, leaders in IT organizations likely need to demonstrate these core skills and personal attributes to a differentiated degree to be successful. These include but are not limited to:

Clear Communication

IT leaders need to articulate their thoughts clearly, adapt their style to the audience, and actively listen. Clear communication also demands a willingness to provide and receive feedback and to address difficult conversations.

Technological Agility

IT leaders are increasingly required to demonstrate a solid understanding of technology trends and platforms, assess the utility and feasibility of adopting new technologies, and manage implementations and integrations to drive enterprise goals.

Embracing Diversity

Leadership requires the ability to appreciate and leverage diversity in thought, background, and identity. This skill is invaluable as IT organizations increasingly serve diverse customer bases and require a multitude of perspectives to develop innovative solutions.

Agile and Adaptive

IT leaders need to be agile and adaptive, navigating a rapidly changing digital landscape and disruptive innovations. This requires a combination of resilience, nimbleness, and a willingness to take calculated risks and learn from mistakes.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence

Beyond being aware of their own emotions, IT leaders benefit from understanding and empathizing with the feelings of others, and using this understanding to guide thinking and behavior. This skill helps navigate conflict, motivate team members, and provide thoughtful leadership.

Developing Others

Great leaders are often distinguished by their ability to develop others. This skill is manifest in the ability to provide effective feedback, offer guidance, mentor, and delegate effectively.

Building Relationships

IT leaders benefit from cultivating relationships, both internally within the organization and externally within the industry. This may involve partnering across business units, networking, collaborating with influencers, and participating in professional communities.

Driving Vision and Purpose

Leadership requires inspiring others towards a common goal, providing purpose and motivation to pursue it. This skill is driven by communicating a compelling vision of the future, underpinned by a deeply held set of beliefs and intentions.

Of course, many other skills and personal attributes exist that may be more or less relevant to IT leadership across various contexts. The importance of each of the above traits will vary based on the size, scope, and strategic orientation of the IT organization in question, as well as the industry, market, and geographical contexts in which the IT organization operates.

It is the rare leader who embodies all of the above traits perfectly. Indeed, IT leaders should strive to develop strengths in those areas that are most pertinent to their context and to their personal career trajectories. The next section discusses strategies for doing so.

Setting Goals for Mentorship, Succession Planning, and Professional Development Initiatives

Once you have a sense of the core traits and skills required of effective IT leaders, you can focus on developing current and future leaders within the IT organization. Doing so requires a multi-faceted approach that targets mentorship, succession planning, and professional development initiatives. Here are some considerations to get started.

1. Mentorship Programs

These are a valuable tool to nurture future leaders, as they pair less experienced employees with more experienced colleagues to guide them professionally. Mentors provide advice and guidance on career development, help build networks and encourage skills development.

2. Succession Planning

Succession planning is a systematic process to ensure the continuity of leadership by identifying and developing employees with the potential to fill key roles in the future. It requires an understanding of the organization’s future leadership needs and the evaluation of potential candidates using defined criteria.

3. Professional Development Initiatives

These are opportunities to expand the leader’s knowledge base, maintain professional credentials, and strengthen core leadership skills. Professional development may take many forms, including classroom instruction, online courses, certifications, and leadership development programs.

4. Rotational Assignments

These are opportunities for employees to work in different areas of the IT organization, potentially across business units, to gain a holistic understanding of the enterprise. Rotational assignments help employees develop broader organizational knowledge, diversify skills, and expose them to different leadership styles.

5. Project Leadership Opportunities

Employees at all levels within the IT organization may be given the opportunity to lead projects, gaining experience in mobilizing resources, driving outcomes, and managing stakeholder relationships. This is a tangible way to develop core leadership skills like clear communication, decision-making, and conflict resolution.

6. Coaching and Feedback

Consistent with the mentorship theme, IT leaders must provide others with constructive feedback and guidance to help them develop and strengthen their leadership skills. This may involve 360-degree feedback processes, coaching from a qualified professional, and a culture of open and honest feedback within the IT organization.

7. Incentives and Rewards

IT leaders should incentivize and reward employees who demonstrate leadership skills and actively foster the organization’s leadership culture and aspirations. Like all employees, IT leaders respond positively to rewards and incentives aligned with their values and career goals. A clear message is sent to the broader organization when these incentives are tied to leadership traits and behaviors.

8. Culture and Hiring Practices

IT leaders should work to establish and perpetuate a culture that celebrates leadership traits like innovation, collaboration, diversity, and transparency. This requires hiring practices that prioritize these traits, along with a plurality of perspectives and backgrounds. Doing so creates a culture where leadership traits are not only celebrated but nurtured.

9. Continuous Learning and Adaptation

Finally, IT leaders must embody a commitment to continuous learning and adaptation, both at the individual and organizational levels. This requires an openness to feedback, a willingness to make mistakes and learn from them, and the wherewithal to redefine plans and strategies as new information arises. Effective IT leadership necessitates a commitment to staying abreast of trends and innovations in the broader digital landscape.

Developing future IT leaders involves more than just promoting employees who are poised to assume leadership positions. It requires a holistic and sustainable approach to mentorship, succession planning, and professional development initiatives, all underpinned by a culture that celebrates leadership traits and skills.