You’ll eventually be promoted to your highest level of incompetency.

Tom Peters, a leader in IT vision, strategy, statistical analysis, and management, is quoted saying “In a Hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his highest level of incompetence.” This is also more commonly known as one of the Peters Principles, which most IT professionals are familiar with today. This saying comes from a famous case study performed by Mr. Tom Peters in the 1970s and is based on a majority of the fortune 500 company IT shops of that time. What his analysis revealed was a tendency for our field to promote technically competent employees to positions of management. So what’s the problem you ask? Very simple; just because you are technically inclined does not mean you have leadership skills. Management skills can be easily taught, but leadership skills are much more difficult to teach. Some would argue that people are born a leader or a follower. I personally think both genetics and upbringing have a great deal to do with one’s leadership ability.

What happens is an IT manager (we’ll say John Doe) will notice Billy Bob who has been a great programmer for the last 3 years. John figures, he is technically capable, and everyone likes him, so he must be management material. We’ll after all, this is how John Doe got noticed, so John Doe thinks to himself, I’ll just promote Billy Bob, after all that‘s how I got my job…now we are starting to shed some light on the origin of the problem. What John Doe has just done is promote an employee that may have no management experience, no vision, and limited or no leadership skill set and promoted him to a position that requires these skills. The reason this continues is because it is part of a historic and subconscious mentality that has been taking place since the late 1960s. Let’s face it; if you have been told all your life that you should hold your nose when jumping into a pool and everyone else around you holds their nose when jumping in, what are you going to do? I bet you’ll hold your nose. Ok, bad analogy but you get the picture. If you don’t think this is true ask yourself how many IT Managers, deputy directors, CTOs, or CIOs have you worked for that you would consider being truly competent leaders. Notice, I did not ask about competent managers, as managers are simply individuals that assign and track staff work flow and activities. I asked about competent leaders, which every manager should be, unless an organization is simply looking for a person to track and measure, and never to improve a team’s performance, vision, or strategy.

So how do we break this pattern of creating managers with no, or limited leadership skills? It has to start at the top of the organizational hierarchy. Once organizational leaders (or high level employees…grin) understand the importance of leadership over management and have insight into the time honored, yet flawed, IT promotional path that typically takes place, the cycle can be broken.

So where should one look to find a competent leader within IT? My first suggestion is to look outside of your organization. You can certainly consider internal staff, but don’t close the door on a nation or global search, as I have found the answer to seldom sitting in a cubical outside my office door. The search may take some time, but in the end you’ll be glad you did it.
What should one look for in a leader? How would you define a leader? As an IT professional with over 20 years of experience in IT and over 15 years of experience in IT management and leadership, I have always done my best to follow the following practices:

1. Model the way. Your talk, actions, and reactions should model both your personal and professional beliefs as well as the organizational belief structure. If you find the two conflicts, look for another job. After all you found this job when you were looking…right?
2. Inspire a shared vision. This is a quality that is much less common in leaders. In the IT world, it combines an understanding of technical concepts, business deliverables, presentation, delivery/execution, and embracing change. And let’s be honest, any leader that can do this, will probably need to meet most of the leadership attributes in this list. If you find a leader with this one quality, grab him. He is one in a million!
3. Challenge the process. This starts with two questions: ‘Why do we do it this way?’ and ‘What can I do to make it better?’ Don’t be satisfied with status quo. After all, do you think productive advancement comes from leaving all processes as they are? Not at all, this is certain job suicide. Embrace change, and don’t be afraid to be a catalyst for change.
   
4. Empower others to act. Simply put, if you are in a leadership position one of your primary roles is to provide staff with resources, authority and to remove road blocks that will ultimately make them successful at performing their job responsibilities.
5. Encourage the heart. This can be done by awarding staff with supportive words, recognition awards, time off, assignment of the new cool technology project for a job well done, etc. You don’t have to be a bleeding heart, but you must maintain a balance between the harmony of your employees and the tasks at hand. Also, treat your staff as professionals. I have often said; if you treat employees like they are professionals, they will act like professionals. Treat your staff like children, and you will soon find yourself managing a daycare center.

If you ever find a job candidate with 3 or more of these skills, hire him/her as fast as possible, for they are most certainly a rare commodity.

-EDIT: His name is Mr. Tom Peters :) -