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By Katherine Spencer Lee
One of your key responsibilities as an IT executive is assembling a management team that not only meets the needs of the department but also contributes to the overall success of your company. While the managers you hire must possess hands-on technical abilities, it's equally important that their soft skills, including leadership, be well developed. Your challenge is to find candidates who possess a mix of both qualities.
Here are three of the most important qualities any manager must have:
1) The ability to retain and motivate staff. Competition for skilled IT professionals remains high, especially for hard-to-fill positions such as lead applications engineers, Web developers and network security specialists. As a result, keeping talented team members on board is essential. A prospective IT manager should be able to show what steps he or she has taken in previous roles that contributed to low attrition rates. For example, did the person lobby for a larger training budget to ensure staff were provided with adequate professional development opportunities? What forms of employee recognition did he or she rely on to ensure personnel remained motivated and satisfied in their positions?
2) Business acumen. A manager must possess a thorough understanding of your industry and your company's competitive advantages in order to ensure IT contributes to the bottom line. Does the prospective manager possess a proven track record of budgeting and strategic planning, for instance?
3) Communication skills. Seek out individuals who can not only communicate company goals and objectives to staff members but also help them buy into the firm's vision and keep them motivated when setbacks occur. A successful manager must also be able to "sell" IT's strategy to senior executives, who may not always recognize the role that the department plays in your company's success.
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Having established those three qualities, how do you then go about evaluating whether a particular candidate measures up? Start by looking at the applicant's resume. Is there a record of success and increasing responsibility? Has he or she supervised staff before? Although a candidate does not need to have directly managed others in the past to be successful with your firm, the person should have experience leading project teams or supervising large-scale engagements.
During the interview process, involve other members of your team to see how the candidate interacts with prospective coworkers and mangers. Also devote significant energy to reference checking. Consider speaking with a mix of managers, peers and direct reports to get a more complete and balanced picture of the candidate. Ask the individuals you speak with if they can recommend others who can offer additional feedback. This is one of the most effective ways to gain candid information about an applicant.
Perhaps most importantly, make sure you are not neglecting your own internal candidates when searching for new managers. Internal employees are already familiar with your business and corporate culture and have likely formed collaborative relationships with colleagues throughout the organization. Plus, you can build morale by demonstrating a policy of promotion from within.
Hiring top-tier IT managers is always a challenge, but by committing the resources and attention this task deserves, your company will reap long-lasting rewards that ultimately improve the performance of the organization.
Katherine Spencer Lee is executive director of Robert Half Technology, a leading provider of IT professionals on a project and full-time basis. Robert Half Technology has more than 100 locations in North America, South America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region and offers online job search services at http://www.rht.com.
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