“I learned that even the best technology can struggle if stakeholders are not engaged early and often,” he says. “Today, I spend considerably more time communicating the vision, listening to concerns, building alignment, and creating ownership before implementation begins.”
Imsand has also learned that not every opportunity needs to be pursued immediately.
“Prioritization is just as important as innovation,” he stresses. “Some of the best leadership decisions involve knowing what not to do so the organization can focus its time, resources, and energy on what creates the greatest value.”
As for her learning experiences, Huang points to failed projects that didn’t make it to production.
Most mistakes were made by “overly trusting the information people gave on timelines,” she says, as well as not fully understanding why certain milestones hit delays and giving stakeholders too much confidence that a team would be able to conquer a roadblock.
“I could have dived deeper,” she admits, noting that not taking the extra step caused delays that had domino effects.
Finding great mentors
Often, IT managers don’t get to where they are on their own. Galicki attributes his rise in leadership to having great mentors along the way.
“You don’t grow in leadership in general, but certainly in the IT world within a health system, without learning why decisions were made, how to lead, how to work within the organization, and I think IT leadership is no different,” he says. “You’ve got to go out and build trust from that.”
Learning from mentors is critical, but so is building alignment with the end-users, Galicki adds.
Huang agrees, saying her mentor is her CTO and boss Amol Kale.
“He’s a very big part of my growing journey,” she says. “He has given me lot of tips on how to manage down and being a good manager.” Learning how to manage down is equally important to managing up, Huang notes.
Kale has also made Huang aware of her tone of voice. Noting that she is a New Yorker who talks fast, Huang says Kale often tells her to slow down. Sometimes, Huang says, she doesn’t recognize that “my tone can come across as a little harsh, a little too fast.”
Feedback like that can be vital — and sometimes hard to come by. Huang and others advise aspiring IT leaders to seek that out by first building trust.
“Definitely someone that you trust and you constantly get feedback from is very important,” she says.
How to rise from IT manager to IT leadership
Candidates for IT leadership roles generally spend between five and 10 years operating in a director-level capacity, perhaps reporting to a CIO, Harvey Nash’s Birch notes.
“If the candidate has the drive, broad technology understanding, commercial expertise, and the ability to inspire and lead diverse groups of professionals, then they may well be approached for their first C-suite position,” he says. “Perhaps they would move from being a direct report of a global CIO in a large corporate, complex business to being a CIO themselves.”
While many organizations focus on succession management to ensure that when their CXO departs there is someone ready to step into the role for a seamless transition, internal promotion is not always appropriate, Birch notes. “Often, with a change at the board level or across the C-suite, there is an appetite to bring in alternative technology leadership who can deliver new ideas and ways of doing things.”
Regardless, there are measures IT managers can take to make themselves more visible and valuable. Huang and Imsand both advise building relationships across the organization, not just within IT.
“Spend time forming human connections. That goes a long way. Technology, you can always learn online — we forget the human connection,” Huang says. “Show genuine interest in other people; that’s the best way to form connections. People like to talk about themselves. That’s how you learn.”
Galicki is a firm believer in getting outside of IT to learn more about the changes and problems businesspeople are trying to solve.
“If you sit behind a desk,” he says, “you’re losing out on at least half the picture of what we do day to day.” He also advises asking questions. “The more you ask about the business of healthcare, the more you can support” business units. “Don’t be an order taker.”
Also, Imsand advises against defining yourself by your current job title. Like Johnson, he says you should become known as someone who consistently solves organizational problems.
“Develop expertise beyond technology,” Imsand adds. “Learn how budgets are built, understand procurement, governance, risk management, and business strategy.”
Johnson recommends doing the job you aspire to — with executive buy-in. She also stresses not to dwell on mistakes. “We all mess up every day up to highest level, and if you don’t put yourself out there, you’re not going to go anywhere,” she says.
Imsand also believes it’s worth investing in your communication skills. “Senior leaders spend far more time explaining, influencing, mentoring, and aligning people than configuring technology.”
And IT managers should invest in developing others, he says.
“As your career progresses, your success becomes less about what you accomplish personally and more about what your team accomplishes because of your leadership,” Imsand explains.
What leadership is really about
Johnson has a more philosophical perspective on what it takes to become a leader.
“Leadership isn’t your title or job assignments, it’s what you do to bring other people on board and move mountains to get things done,” she says. “The best leaders I’ve known … it’s literally the essence of who they are.”
Even as she doesn’t emphasize job titles, Johnson admits that when the right opportunity comes along, she wants to become a CIO. But she believes there is more room in the C-suite for other tech executives — and she wouldn’t mind a title with AI in it.
“I think we’re going to end up realizing at the CIO level there is another job of that same C-suite level that is enterprise data and CIO,” since the CIO can’t do everything, Johnson says. “There’s all the data and infrastructure to take care of and more of the business.” That might leave room for an equitable C-level position that’s concentrated on data and AI, she says.
“Maybe we stop calling things ‘data’ and ‘AI’ and we start calling that enterprise information,” Johnson muses. “Maybe I will invent another title for myself.”
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