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Several years ago, deep in the throes of an empowerment fad, I became the “culture coach” for our IS organization. My fellow IS managers questioned my qualifications.

“You’re a techie!” one of them exclaimed. “The job needs someone who thinks about the human side of management!”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” I replied, pondering how well someone who made that statement in public really understood the human side of management. My response didn’t entirely defuse the skepticism. I got the job anyway, probably because (a) the other IS managers viewed it as a career buster, and (b) I had the most important qualification – a thick skin.

Juxtapose an event a year earlier. A friend and fellow manager asked me to mediate a situation with one of her technically strongest employees, who didn’t think she really understood how much he contributed to the organization. Since I was a techie, she thought the guy might relate to me better.

As a previous column proposed, leadership is defined by who seeks approval from whom. Technically proficient employees – and IS needs a cadre of technically adept employees – often devalue the approval of technically ignorant managers.

This should be unsurprising. Soldiers prefer generals who have seen combat – they understand what soldiers go through in battle and are less likely to issue stupidly lethal orders. Journalists like editors who know how to write – they understand the process of ferreting out a story and are less likely to ruin good copy.

Programmers, DBAs, network engineers, all understand that managers who have never written and debugged code, made design compromises for the sake of production tuning, or tracked down a bad cable, won’t be able to judge performance. They’re right.

That’s why technical employees too often watch their ideas and recommendations go unheard while promotions and recognition go to their non-technical peers – like promotes like.

Technical employees understand that managers who have never held technical jobs are more likely to establish ridiculous deadlines, create unworkable project plans, embrace silly fads, and fall for extravagant vendor claims. And of course, they hold employees accountable for making it all work.

Technical employees want to walk into their manager’s office, describe a dust-up with some willfully ignorant end-user and what they did about it, and have the manager say, “Here’s something you might try. It’s worked pretty well for me in similar situations. And don’t worry – I’ll explain the facts of life to the user’s manager.”

Most important: leadership requires establishing an organization’s overall direction by articulating a description of what the future must look like. Technical employees are simply unlikely to find such a picture credible when painted by someone whose total technical depth consists of having attended one James Martin satellite conference.

Think about Bill Gates’ status as industry leader. At some primal level it’s deeply satisfying, despite Microsoft’s questionable business practices and even more questionable software design. The reason, I think, is that Bill Gates started as a personal computer hobbyist and weenie. He’s one of us.

Does this mean non-technical IS managers must immediately tender their resignations (after hand-writing them and handing them to a secretary to type, since they don’t know how to fire up the word processor)?

No. Nor is business acumen unimportant in the job – business acumen is absolutely vital to a CIO’s success. Too.

If you’re a non-technical IS manager, though, you have a big hill to climb. The most effective IS leaders act as high-level technology consultants for the rest of the company, understanding business issues, envisioning broad-brush solutions that maximize technical leverage, and providing insight into what will be required to make it all happen.

Then they have to translate it so the people who have to make it all happen understand what’s required, why it’s important and exciting, and that it’s feasible.

No big deal.

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|In: Career Management|Last Updated:

It’s another re-run this week, this time a missive on who’s leading whom, and how to tell.

Any value in interpreting current events is, as always, fortuitous.

– Bob

Years ago the Lewis household had a dog named Nicky. Nicky was a Shetland Sheepdog with an overactive pituitary – he’d grown nearly to collie size, with a snout to match.

Nicky used his snout to get affection, wedging it between the human arm he’d targeted as the desired petting instrument and the arm of whatever chair it rested on.

My ex-wife had raised Nicky, training him to respond to a snap of her fingers and the word “Git!” by departing instantly. It worked every time.

When I wasn’t in a petting mood I would also snap fingers and say, “Git!” Then I would repeat myself. Nicky, sensing a lack of commitment on my part, substituted the long, sad, soulful look only brown-eyed dogs can produce for the behavior I desired, and eventually I would cave in.

I’ve always been a sucker for a dog who wants petting.

But I always wondered if, deep down, Nicky wasn’t sneering at me, convinced he’d established dominance over his owner.

I’ve never been a successful leader of dogs. Whether I’m a good leader of employees I’ll leave to those who have had the experience. Having had the experience, though, I’ve spent quite some time pondering the question of leadership, and I think I’ve figured it out.

This week, we’ll begin a series on leadership. Let’s begin by asking the most basic question we can define: what is a leader?

Never mind what constitutes good leadership, indifferent leadership, bad leadership, visionary leadership, pragmatic leadership, or whatever other adjectives you think may be important. Future columns will deal with the adjectives.

We’re going to peel the onion further than that. This week, you’re going to ask yourself the absolute, bedrock question that more than any other question will define your success or failure as a manager (because a manager who can’t lead will eventually fall by the wayside): are you a leader at all, good, bad, or indifferent?

So here’s the basic measure of a leader: who looks to whom for approval?

That’s it. Do the employees in your organization look to you for approval, or do you seek theirs?
If you’re a manager, take a hard look at your interactions. Do you tell jokes because you want employees to like you or approve of you? Do you want to be the center of attention?

Here’s a red flag: when someone in your organization tells you about how they’ve accomplished some task or other and you’ve gone through the usual Q&A on the subject, they ask you, “Was that what you had in mind?” Employees will stop looking to you for approval if you don’t give it, unsolicited, when they succeed.

Here’s another bad sign: employees filing weekly status reports filled with braggadocio – sycophantic attempts to gain your attention. Yes, they want to notice them, but it’s because you ignore them completely or they think they can manipulate you, not because they value your genuine approval.

Here’s a worse symptom: employees don’t do what you ask until you yell at them, and then they do it halfheartedly. Employees who act out of fear won’t want your approval. They just want to stay out of your way.

How you interact with peers – who looks to whom for approval in these interactions? To the extent your peers look to you for approval, that’s the extent you’re viewed as ready for the next promotion. Every corporate executive has a mental list of who belongs on the executive track. You want to be on that list? Stop looking for approval, and start giving it to others.

Give enough approval, and the right kind, and others will seek it. Give too little and they’ll stop trying; too much too easily and they’ll take it for granted.

Does this all strike you as manipulative? Me too. Think of it this way, though: somebody will get the next promotion.

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