The Struggle is Real…

Here's a tough one for many IT pros who've become managers:

If you're regularly doing work that is in the job description of one of the people you supervise, you're getting it wrong.

Your job is to lead and do the tasks that are in your job description uniquely. If you're spending a regular amount of time doing work that others in your department should be doing, you need to refocus on the leadership tasks that will stop that bad habit as quickly as possible.

- Maybe that involves hiring another person or doing what's necessary to pull the money together to hire another person.
- Maybe that involves providing leadership support to the employees that should be doing that work - evaluating their workload and raising your expectations or taking things off their plate that others can do.
- Maybe that involves training people to do that work.
- MAYBE that involves divorcing your own heart from that kind of work, even though you love doing it and think you're the best in the group at it. <--- Got you, IT pro. Time to become an IT Leader.

It really helps to have a mentor that keeps you accountable in these areas, because it's unlikely that your people will, and your boss often doesn't have the foggiest idea about this stuff, so they won't, either.