Leadership in the IT industry

At our CEO breakfast earlier this week, we listened to Mats Lindgren from Kairos Future, who spoke about the art of leading young people, and about the values and needs of different generations. Of course, it gave us food for thought - what is leadership in the IT industry really like?

The industry that really depends on hiring and developing young talent - but can we take care of them? Is the industry made up of loud-mouthed managers who think all young people are terrible careerists? Judging by Cairo's findings, we're pretty good. Even very good. Young people working in IT and technology are the most satisfied with life at work. Along with those in media and information, an overwhelming proportion thought that they were actually quite close to their dream job. And managers in IT and technology find it difficult to manage them, which I interpret as "our" managers having both great insight and being responsive. What young people value most in managers is responsiveness, along with getting clear feedback on their performance.

Personally, this feels pretty obvious. The IT sector is a knowledge industry that has long been characterized by a consulting and skills culture. I am absolutely convinced that the best leadership training you can get is to be a manager of a consulting organization. There is an extremely clear link between individual competence and performance, with the profitability of the unit and consultants are guaranteed to know their own value. The difficulty for the manager is to find the developmental aspect of each assignment - despite the fact that it is sometimes quite standard, to create a sense of belonging between the company and the consultants who are all on different assignments, to create a sense of well-being and a developmental environment. I was a consultant manager myself in the 90s and remember these challenges very well, which probably developed a very responsive leadership - perhaps also a little too much "curling" (according to Kairos terminology) with the consultants. Because there was always a concern that the competitor would lure over competent consultants - along with both client and the rest of the team.

Today the situation is a little different. But I think that the leadership culture in the industry still has the responsive leadership, but that today we are better at setting and following up clear goals for each employee. This is good - and obviously something that the new generation - "Generation Order" - demands.