{"id":23356,"date":"2026-08-11T06:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T06:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/how-to-level-up-from-it-management-to-it-leadership\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T06:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T06:31:10","slug":"how-to-level-up-from-it-management-to-it-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/how-to-level-up-from-it-management-to-it-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"How to level up from IT management to IT leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cI learned that even the best technology can struggle if stakeholders are not engaged early and often,\u201d he says. \u201cToday, I spend considerably more time communicating the vision, listening to concerns, building alignment, and creating ownership before implementation begins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imsand has also learned that not every opportunity needs to be pursued immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrioritization is just as important as innovation,\u201d he stresses. \u201cSome 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for her learning experiences, Huang points to failed projects that didn\u2019t make it to production.<\/p>\n

Most mistakes were made by \u201coverly trusting the information people gave on timelines,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could have dived deeper,\u201d she admits, noting that not taking the extra step caused delays that had domino effects.<\/p>\n

Finding great mentors<\/h2>\n

Often, IT managers don\u2019t get to where they are on their own. Galicki attributes his rise in leadership to having great mentors along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t 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,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to go out and build trust from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learning from mentors is critical, but so is building alignment with the end-users, Galicki adds.<\/p>\n

Huang agrees, saying her mentor is her CTO and boss Amol Kale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a very big part of my growing journey,\u201d she says. \u201cHe has given me lot of tips on how to manage down and being a good manager.\u201d Learning how to manage down is equally important to managing up, Huang notes.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t recognize that \u201cmy tone can come across as a little harsh, a little too fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feedback like that can be vital \u2014 and sometimes hard to come by. Huang and others advise aspiring IT leaders to seek that out by first building trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely someone that you trust and you constantly get feedback from is very important,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

How to rise from IT manager to IT leadership<\/h2>\n

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\u2019s Birch notes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf 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,\u201d he says. \u201cPerhaps they would move from being a direct report of a global CIO in a large corporate, complex business to being a CIO themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cOften, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpend time forming human connections. That goes a long way. Technology, you can always learn online \u2014 we forget the human connection,\u201d Huang says. \u201cShow genuine interest in other people; that\u2019s the best way to form connections. People like to talk about themselves. That\u2019s how you learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galicki is a firm believer in getting outside of IT to learn more about the changes and problems businesspeople are trying to solve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you sit behind a desk,\u201d he says, \u201cyou\u2019re losing out on at least half the picture of what we do day to day.\u201d He also advises asking questions. \u201cThe more you ask about the business of healthcare, the more you can support\u201d business units. \u201cDon\u2019t be an order taker.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cDevelop expertise beyond technology,\u201d Imsand adds. \u201cLearn how budgets are built, understand procurement, governance, risk management, and business strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson recommends doing the job you aspire to \u2014 with executive buy-in. She also stresses not to dwell on mistakes. \u201cWe all mess up every day up to highest level, and if you don\u2019t put yourself out there, you\u2019re not going to go anywhere,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Imsand also believes it\u2019s worth investing in your communication skills. \u201cSenior leaders spend far more time explaining, influencing, mentoring, and aligning people than configuring technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

And IT managers should invest in developing others, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs your career progresses, your success becomes less about what you accomplish personally and more about what your team accomplishes because of your leadership,\u201d Imsand explains.<\/p>\n

What leadership is really about<\/h2>\n

Johnson has a more philosophical perspective on what it takes to become a leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeadership isn\u2019t your title or job assignments, it\u2019s what you do to bring other people on board and move mountains to get things done,\u201d she says. \u201cThe best leaders I\u2019ve known \u2026 it\u2019s literally the essence of who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as she doesn\u2019t 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<\/a> \u2014 and she wouldn\u2019t mind a title with AI in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re 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,\u201d since the CIO can\u2019t do everything, Johnson says. \u201cThere\u2019s all the data and infrastructure to take care of and more of the business.\u201d That might leave room for an equitable C-level position that\u2019s concentrated on data and AI, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we stop calling things \u2018data\u2019 and \u2018AI\u2019 and we start calling that enterprise information,\u201d Johnson muses. \u201cMaybe I will invent another title for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

See also:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI learned that even the best technology can struggle if stakeholders are not engaged early and often,\u201d he says. \u201cToday, I spend considerably more time communicating the vision, listening to concerns, building alignment, and creating ownership before implementation begins.\u201d Imsand has also learned that not every opportunity needs to be pursued immediately. \u201cPrioritization is just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":23357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}