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AUGUST 22, 2010

LEADERSHIP

Do Techies Make Good Leaders?

They can, but developing their skills definitely poses challenges

By ROBERT M. FULMER
AND BYRON HANSON

It's hard to develop leaders in any industry. But people in the technology sector seem to believe it's especially
hard in their business.

So is it?
Journal Report
Read the complete WSJ Executive Adviser We put that theory to the test and concluded that tech people
report .
have a point: The speed of the industry's growth, along with the
type of workers it attracts—young and with backgrounds in
engineering and science—does, indeed, lead to some unique challenges.

What follows are key insights and lessons that emerged from our research, which involved surveys of technology
companies and interviews with industry leaders. Although the focus of this study was the tech sector, our
previous work suggests that these lessons could be useful to any company seeking to improve its leadership-
development process.

Formalize the System

Many high-tech companies are young, so their systems and procedures for grooming leaders aren't well
developed or firmly established. As tech companies grow and mature, the need to set up more formal leadership-
development processes becomes crucial to retaining key employees. The tricky part is planning the right time to
do it.

Tech companies that wait too long risk disorganization and the
loss of good people. But those that put formal systems into place
too soon risk restricting the entrepreneurial climate that is a
founding principle of successful high-tech start-ups.

Picking the exact moment to formalize the process appears to be

more of an art than science. Typically, a company will recognize
it's having trouble filling critical leadership jobs and that key
people are leaving for better opportunities at other businesses.
Successful companies recognize the warning signs before there's
a real problem.

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Can Tech Firms Produce Good Leaders? - WSJ.com#printMode
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Tim Bower
executive leadership at Intel.
Value Leadership
Helping tech professionals see the value in leadership can be difficult. Technologically oriented people often get
more personal satisfaction out of designing and building new products and services than they do out of managing
people. As a result, they may be reluctant to give up hands-on involvement in day-to-day projects.
Questions to Ask Yourself
1. Are you having trouble filling critical leadership
jobs?
2. Are some of your key people leaving for better
opportunities at other companies?
3. Does your corporate culture reward and
respect technical expertise more than leadership
ability?
4. Is it a struggle to get people to participate in
coaching or mentoring programs?
5. Do you believe your ability to groom people for
leadership roles is being hampered by the nature
of the tech business?
If you answered yes to some of these questions,
it may be time to fine-tune your organization's
leadership-development process. Encourage
managers to make leadership a priority by
measuring the thoroughness with which they try
to develop subordinates. Recognize and reward
managers for coaching and mentoring others.
Help would-be managers understand why
leadership is important to the company's success.
For Further Reading
Related articles from MIT Sloan Management
Review
Bridging the Gap Between Stewards and
Creators
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Focus on Data
While professionals in all industries like and use data, tech
professionals simply love the details. This insight can be useful
in building support for leadership development at tech firms.
Our research suggests that one of the best ways to compel tech
leaders to improve their leadership skills is to measure things
such as the thoroughness with which they try to advance the
careers of their subordinates. Measurement may be as simple as
calculating the percentage of a manager's direct reports with
completed performance reviews or succession plans. Or it may
include more sophisticated analysis of employee surveys aimed
at comparing the environments created by various leaders in a
firm.
Intel Corp. says it became much more adept at talent
management once it started measuring the extent to which
managers engage in development and career conversations with
their team members.
Knowing it could show up on their performance reviews helped
managers see that the company considers talent development
critical to its success, says Deb Whitaker, a senior consultant on
To fix this, tech companies need to create a corporate culture in
which leadership is rewarded and respected as much as technical
expertise.
Self-image also plays a role in a leader's effectiveness.
Managers who see themselves primarily as technical experts are
less likely to spend time developing subordinates than those who
see leadership as their main role. In addition, most people will
listen differently to feedback from a person they view as a team
leader as opposed to someone they view as a technical colleague.
Engage the Audience
Tech professionals tend to be smart, practical, competitive and
action-oriented. They also are typically fast learners, capable of
moving quickly from one concept to another. So while many of
them need to learn the fundamentals of leadership, they
generally won't thrive in a program that looks and feels like
Leadership 101.
For that reason, tech companies should design leadership
courses that are smart, specific and fast-moving to keep
participants engaged. Classes and activities that simulate real-
world problems and competition typically lead to better
outcomes.
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By Robert D. Austin and Richard L. Nolan (Winter Getting senior executives involved in training—not as talking
2007)
Clashes between bottom line-oriented managers heads but as teachers and facilitators who add value through
(stewards) and creative technical employees their experience, observation and feedback—also is valuable.
(creators) may be inevitable. But when those
conflicts aren't managed well, a company's ability Encourage Coaching
to innovate may be at risk.
Can You Measure Leadership?
Coaching is an important tool for developing leaders. But the
By Robert Gandossy and Robin Guarnieri (Fall people we interviewed said many tech companies struggle to
2008) establish effective coaching and mentoring programs.
At top companies, where the inspired use of
metrics helps to identify potential leaders and
develop their skills, the answer is yes. Part of the problem is that tech companies often hire and reward
people for being the smartest "techies" in the room, not for
Developing Leaders: How Winning Companies
Keep On Winning nurturing the careers of lower-level team members. If tech
By Robert M. Fulmer, Philip A. Gibbs and companies want to encourage coaching and mentoring, they
Marshall Goldsmith (Fall 2000)
need to recognize and reward employees for doing it.
How do some companies keep a steady stream
of leaders moving up? By focusing on the five
essentials of leadership development. Some tech companies have embraced "peer coaching"—an
Leading at the Enterprise Level approach in which colleagues in similar positions work together
By Douglas A. Ready (Spring 2004) for a few days and then provide feedback to each other on what
Many companies have outstanding business-unit they observed.
and functional leaders but far fewer who can act
in the interests of the corporate enterprise as a
whole. A peer-coaching relationship places coaching at a collegial level
rather than at a leader/subordinate level, which can be more
easily accepted and respected in a technology-company culture.
Peer coaching can remove some of the baggage that goes along with receiving coaching from your boss. The
feedback tends to be based on "what I've seen here," rather than "who you are."

Dr. Fulmer is academic director of Duke Corporate Education, an affiliate of Duke University's Fuqua School of
Business that provides executive-education services. He has held endowed professorships at Trinity College, the
College of William & Mary and Pepperdine University. Dr. Hanson is a managing director at Duke Corporate
Education and an adjunct professor of leadership at the Curtin University of Technology's Graduate School of
Business in Australia. They can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

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