IT Leadership Manual: Roadmap to Becoming a Trusted Business Partner

CHAPTER 7

Do You Have Enough Friends?

Like most technologists, I spent the first part of my career focusing on the job at hand. My main objective was to do the best job I possibly could, accomplish the tasks assigned to me, provide the company with the best value, and fulfill my own individual drives and goals. Most technologists feel that way. We view the hard skills as the important things in our career because we can measure them and the value they provide the corporation. The problem is those are not the things that make you successful in the long run. Yes they get you started, they help you gain a reputation, and they give you personal satisfaction, but in the end, it is not really your hard skills that help you move up the corporate ladder.

I have been teaching college for many years now and the subject of my college discussion is “preparing for corporate life.” When we enter the corporate world, most of us have no idea of the intricacies involved in succeeding within that environment. I always tell my students that when you begin your corporate life it is all about what you deliver rather than how you are perceived. This pendulum swings as you move up the corporate ladder. The higher you go in corporate life the more it is about how you are perceived than what you actually deliver. That is because the higher you go in corporate life it is more about relationships and the personal interactions between you and your peers, subordinates, and customers. As technologists, we ...