Ralph Nader once said, "I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers". In the IT world is is hard to produce leaders and it is doubly hard to produce and keep followers.
On his blog, Alexander Kjerulf talks about How Not to Lead Geeks and mentions that "the main reason IT people are unhappy at work is bad relations with management". He goes on to say that "the fact is that IT people hate bad management and have even less tolerance for it than most other kinds of employees".
Wow, I couldn't agree more. It is suprising that this flawed geek leadership strategy is still very prevelant today in our organizations. I see the mistakes listed below happen every day. I can only wonder how much more productive "geeks" would be if these mistakes weren't continuously repeated on a regular basis.
Here are Alex's thoughts on the top 10 mistakes he has seen managers make when leading geeks:
1) Downplay training
I had a boss once who said that “training is a waste of money, just teach yourself”. That company tanked 2 years later. Training matters, especially in IT, and managers must realize that and budget for it. Sometimes you get the argument that “if I give them training a competitor will hire them away.” That may be true, but the alternative is to only have employees who are too unskilled to work anywhere else.
2) Give no recognition
Since managers may not understand the work geeks do very well, it’s hard for them to recognize and reward a job well done, which hurts motivation. The solution is to work together to define a set of goals that both parties agree on. When these goals are met the geeks are doing a great job.
3) Plan too much overtime
“Let’s wring the most work out of our geeks, they don’t have lives anyway,” seems to the approach of some managers. That’s a huge mistake and overworked geeks burn out or simply quit. In one famous case, a young IT-worker had a stress-induced stroke on the job, was hospitalized, returned to work soon after and promptly had another stroke. This post further examines the myth that long work hours are good for business.
4) Use management-speak
Geeks hate management-speak and see it as superficial and dishonest. Managers shouldn’t learn to speak tech, but they should drop the biz-buzzwords. A manager can say “We need to proactively impact our time-to-market” or simply use english and stick to “We gotta be on time with this project”.
5) Try to be smarter than the geeks
When managers don’t know anything about a technical question, they should simply admit it. Geeks respect them for that, but not for pretending to know. And they will catch it - geeks are smart.
6) Act inconsistently
Geeks have an ingrained sense of fairness, probably related to the fact that in IT, structure and consistency is critical. The documentation can’t say one thing while the code does something else, and similarly, managers can’t say one thing and then do something else.
7) Ignore the geeks
Because managers and geeks are different types of people, managers may end up leaving the geeks alone. This makes leading them difficult, and geeks need good leadership the same as all other personnel groups.
8) Make decisions without consulting them
Geeks usually know the technical side of the business better than the manager, so making a technical decision without consulting them is the biggest mistake a leader can make.
9) Don’t give them tools
A fast computer may cost more money than an older one and it may not be corporate standard, but geeks use computers differently. A slow computer lowers productivity and is a daily annoyance. So is outdated software. Give them the tools they need.
10: Forget that geeks are creative workers
Programming is a creative process, not an industrial one. Geeks must constantly come up with solutions to new problems and rarely ever solve the same problem twice. Therefore they need leeway and flexibility. S trict dress codes and too much red tape kill all inovation. They also need creative surroundings to avoid “death by cubicle”.
Making one or more of these 10 mistakes (and I’ve seen managers who make all 10) has serious consequences, including:
Low motivation
High employee turnover
Increased absenteeism
Lower productivity
Lower quality
Bad service
Happy geeks are productive geeks, and the most important factor is good management, tailored to their situation.
