How to Lead IT Workers
Paul Hookham
Paul Hookham is a highly experienced
and successful IT delivery executive
with an outstanding track record
working for some of the world’s most
demanding customers.
He is passionate about quality and
believes that people do their greatest
work in an empowered, blame-free,
supportive, and learning environment.
He is comfortable working in
software development, application
support, or infrastructure delivery
and is an evangelist for continuous
improvement.
Paul is also a master practitioner of
neurolinguistic programming (NLP), an
NLP master coach, a published author,
and an experienced speaker.
He can be contacted at paul@
exceedus.co.uk.
© Business Expert Press 978-1-94819-849-3 (2018)
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Abstract: Technology continues to revolutionize our
daily lives. It is vital that IT leaders recognize the need
to ­attract and retain the best talent available, to keep up
with market movements. They must nurture the wants
and needs of their workers. It is no longer acceptable to
dictate how things should be done and by when. The age
of servant leadership is upon us and this article explores
how to make this work for all concerned.
Keywords: Celebration, Change curve, Change
management, Coaching, Collaboration,
Communication, Continuous improvement, Culture,
Curiosity, Leadership, Management
Introduction
Have you ever played a game called “Who’s in Charge?”
It tends to raise its ugly head at meetings where one
or more of the attendees has the audacity to challenge
the leader. It’s a simple, straightforward game but can
only ever have one winner and it’s never the attendees.
It’s a command and control game that ultimately nobody
wins and everybody loses.
The leader may think he or she has won—they haven’t.
In the UK, the skills and capability gaps are getting
wider year on year, and this is one of the most exciting
times for the technology industry. It’s a major concern.
Leadership needs to look at its reflection in the mirror
and appreciate that these problems will never be solved
without fresh thinking and a totally different approach.
People leave bosses, not jobs. This is not news, but
sadly not many companies I have worked with put their
people first. Leaders have not walked the talk as often as
they should. I would argue that people are the only ­asset
any company has on the basis that most other things can
be replaced, albeit with some d ­ isruption. Some r­eally
get it; many don’t.
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 How to Lead IT Workers
So how do some companies manage to
attract and retain the very best people and
others do not? Today, it is more important
than it’s ever been.
This article explores the areas that t­ echnology
leaders should focus on in ­order to achieve
great things.
The world of leading IT workers has been
turned on its head—ignore it at your peril.
Leadership Insights
How should IT workers be led?
What works and what doesn’t?
This is the main thread running through-
out this article, which is based purely on
my experience at the IT delivery ­coalface,
stretching back to the early 1970s. It r­ epresents
the good, the bad, and the ugly that I have
witnessed throughout a long, war-torn, and
battle-scarred career.
So where to start?
Let’s assume that our particular IT
­organization is in need of a major s­ prinkling
of ­improvement dust. They are light years
away from becoming a technology ­ giant
and are in desperate need of a kick, in
terms of delivery speed and q ­ uality. Their
internal customers are restless and are
considering going their own way for their
technology needs. The ­ employees are
sharpening up their resumes—well the
best ones are.
The head honcho recognizes all of this
and has appointed a new technology leader
to mobilize and motivate the troops—to lead
them on a journey to the heady heights of
customer and employee delight. There is
much work to be done.
So what should happen? What are the
priorities? What’s going to be different this
time around? Why on earth bother?
Before addressing these questions, let’s
take a look at what the vast majority of IT
workers like and dislike.
These are pretty smart people for sure, and
from my personal observations, I’ve listed
below the major considerations that need to
be taken on board by a new leader before
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any evangelical speeches to the ­nation. All
of them, if addressed properly, will get most
people interested in what the new leader
has to say (but bear in mind that you can’t
please everyone).
■■ They do not come to work to make man-
agement’s life a misery.
■■ They like to be listened to—they are the
ones doing the detailed technical work
and therefore know where many of the
big ticket improvements need to be made.
■■ They hate, loathe, and detest micro-man-
agement. It suffocates them.
■■ They thrive on technical challenges.
■■ They need access to contemporary tools,
ideally of their choice, that will automate
all of the manually intensive tasks that
add little or no value to anything.
■■ They need support and encouragement
from their leaders—in an environment
where innovation is high on the agenda
and fear/blame does not play any part.
■■ They need to understand the company
­vision and goals—what great looks like
and why? Where are they headed?
■■ They would love to be in charge of their
own personal development.
■■ They enjoy seeing their work in regular use
by their customers, so they can ­continuously
improve it, based on ­real-world feedback.
These may simply scratch at the surface
but do provide a firm foundation on which
to build.
It’s not a bad start and worth bearing in
mind if one has aspirations to become a
great technology leader. It will give some
indication of the type of person that occu-
pies the territory.
However, before doing anything, the leader
should ask everybody this one simple question:
“At this moment in time, would you recom-
mend this organization as a great place to work
to your best friend? If not, why?”
The answers can form the basis of a cred-
ible action plan that will get the journey
off to a flying start, although as with many
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 How to Lead IT Workers
flights, expect that unexpected turbulence
(usually when the hot drinks are served).
Expect resistance—both overt and covert—
as humans do not gladly embrace change,
so each stakeholder needs to know what’s
in it for them.
So what are the vital few things that the
leader needs to get right—the must-dos?
Communication is critical and the
strategy needs to cater for everybody’s
­ as failure is such a subjective word.
needs as they will not all be the same. It
is also not good enough to just stand up in
front of e ­ verybody once and tell them how
much better the world will look moving
forward.
Why?
Our brains are bombarded with millions
of pieces of information every single day.
The only way this can be managed is to
­delete, distort, and generalize what we see,
hear, and feel. It’s the reason everyone
will get a slightly different message unless
the communication is so regular and con-
sistent that it becomes part of the uncon-
scious mind.
There are many examples from history
that bear this out.
Many years ago, I listened to an ­outstanding,
charismatic speech from an IT director, one
that engaged the audience throughout and
really inspired me. ­Unfortunately, there
was no follow-up, so the people simply
­assumed that the content was not the most
important thing the company was doing,
and as a result, nothing much changed. He
might as well have said: “Now get on with
it. Give me a call when you’re finished. I’m
off to the beach!”
Virtually the whole company forgot the
messages overnight. Why on earth would
he do that?
Back in those days, apart from face-to-face
events, there were only presentation slides,
emails, and newsletters. Today, there are so
many other great communication channels
that there is no excuse for failing to keep get-
ting the message out there. Social media,
video channels, web pages, and c­ ollaboration
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tools can be inexpensive and a­ ppeal to the
vast majority. Use them or lose them.
So is that all it takes to lead IT workers to
the Promised Land?
If only it was that easy to transform an IT
function into a high-performing ­powerhouse.
If it were, then there wouldn’t be so many
initiatives that didn’t quite ­deliver what they
set out to and I’m being very diplomatic here
The change curve is a scary place that
resides well outside the district of Comfort
Zone. It lurks in dark corners of the office,
ready to pounce on any signs of weakness.
People need help to navigate the curves of
shock and denial to emerge into the posi-
tive fast straights of learning and integra-
tion. Some will do it quicker than others,
but all needs must be catered for.
Any change or transformation can be
brutally painful. Many organizations have
made conscious decisions to ignore the
signs and, as a result, are no longer with us.
In order to significantly increase the
chances of success, consider introducing a
culture of coaching from day one. How-
ever, it is not something to be taken lightly.
These sessions must never resemble
cozy fireside chats, which is why it is best
practice to use the services of experienced
external coaches, complemented by i­ nternal
ones who have shown an ­aptitude and been
professionally trained. I have seen so many
job descriptions where the ­prospective job
holder must be able to coach less-experienced
team members.
Really? How can this be?
At interviews, why do the hiring ­managers
insist on seeing evidence of ­professional,
­accredited project and program management
qualifications—and not coaching?
For me, it’s so much more important as
it involves direct interfaces with your great-
est assets and challenges them to meet their
goals, both personal and ­ organizational.
It will be obvious if the coach hasn’t been
trained, so please select them carefully;
otherwise lip service will be paid to the
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