Lessons in IT Transformation: Technology Expert to Business Leader

Building Trust

One of the most important qualities required for effective leadership is the presence of trust. I'm not talking about some exercise of falling back and having your colleagues catch you. I am taking about genuine “I've got your back” trust.

When I started in my current position, there was little trust with the people I inherited and their management. Management had decided to outsource the entire IT function and had kept the staff in the dark regarding this process or the rationale behind the decision. People were hanging around on deathwatch, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The first thing I was told by my new manager was that there was a severance budget and that I should simply fire all of the existing staff! I quickly explained to her that while it was possible that the people were a part of the existing problem, I needed some time and effort to work to understand what the real underlying issues were and to develop a plan to address them. I asked her to hold off for a couple of months before simply executing all of the employees!

Needless to say, the team I inherited was understandably not very trusting of management. They felt like they had been thrown under the bus and that no one was watching out for them. In conversations with my new team, I learned that many of them were bright and talented people. However, they were either not being used in the right roles or didn't have the support or processes in place required for them to be effective. Furthermore, ...