7 reasons IT managers fail to exceed your expectations
Executive Take
Promoting your best engineer into management without training him or her to lead is a predictable way to get an average manager. CIOs who build real career tracks for technical experts, not just management ones, keep more good people in the right seats.
Executive Summary
Citing SIM research and interviews with CIOs and advisors, CIO.com lists seven reasons IT managers underperform: lack of management training, weak interpersonal skills, poor role fit, unclear success metrics, reluctance to manage, poor prioritization, and a focus on tech fixes over business outcomes. Experts suggest coaching, clear job descriptions, and tiered career paths as fixes.
Why It Matters
HR and technology leaders should care because IT management failures trace back to promotion practices, not individual skill gaps. Fixing job descriptions, metrics, and career tracks is a joint HR-IT responsibility that most organizations skip.
Bizquad Perspective
The real fix most CIOs skip is building a credible technical track to director level, so top engineers stop taking management jobs they never wanted.