I recently had the opportunity to be a guest editor for the Cutter IT Journal. The article focuses on leadership within the IT organization but has some great learning for anyone in a leadership position.
The editors also picked one of my quotes from the article as the Quote of the Day: “Culture plays an important role in how managers lead and how employees follow (or lead within their specific area). The culture of an organization is more than just the values, vision, goals, and strategies. It is more than a PowerPoint or a framed poster in the lobby. Culture can be defined as the “story” of the organization — the words employees use to describe where and how they work to friends and family. How does an organization define and align the culture? If it is misaligned, how can it be improved to have a more positive impact on employees’ work and the service provided to the customer?
As we explore these questions, we need to understand the attributes of the various leadership levels: CIO/executive, director, midlevel, frontline. While executives need to cast a vision and perhaps view success across a longer timeline, the midlevel and frontline managers must be able to turn that vision into real-time tactics that drive projects at the activity and task level. In many cases, these managers were chosen to lead because they were good at getting things done — not because they understand the nuances of leading people or setting strategies.”
You can download article at the Cutter website here.
