Page 29 - The EDGE Summer 2025

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

BY ALBERT MAGALLANEZ
IT Professionals Moving from a Technical

Position into Leadership Roles
Albert Magallanez
What we are observing today is that the roles resilience. As the scope of IT has broadened, so
within Information Technology (IT) are always in has the demand for professionals who can connect
a state of evolution. Technical skills will always technical execution with strategic leadership.
remain the foundation, but the shift toward According to a 2023 report by Gartner, over 50%
digital transformation, agile frameworks, and of CIOs now prefer to promote leaders from within
cross-functional collaboration now gives those their technical teams, citing better understanding
IT technical professionals new opportunities to of internal systems, company culture, and
begin their journeys into leadership roles. technical constraints as key advantages.

Five Years Ago What Are the Skills That Transfer from Tech
Those IT professionals who began their careers on to Leadership?
the technical side of information technology five While leadership may appear distinct from
years ago would have been focused on managing technical work, there are several core skills
servers, deploying software updates, writing code, developed in technical roles that translate directly
or ensuring cybersecurity protocols were in place. into management:
These IT professionals typically operate within Analytical Thinking: As IT professionals, we
well-defined roles, often not directly involved in are trained problem-solvers. Whether it's
the larger business strategy conversations. debugging code or designing secure architecture,
we must think critically, which is an essential
Moving forward into 2024, many of these same leadership skill.
professionals have moved or are beginning to Project Management: Most tech roles involve
move into roles such as IT Manager, Project agile sprints or structured deployments. The
Lead, Director of Information Systems, or even experience in planning, resource management,
Chief Technology Officer (CTO). and stakeholder alignment serves as a strong
leadership foundation.
The Evolution of IT Roles Cross-Department Collaboration: The rise of
"As technology services evolve, the DevOps (the combination of software development

traditional view of IT as a support (Dev) and IT operations (Ops)) and IT-business
integration means technical IT professionals
function is changing." have had cross-functional exposure in building

stakeholder management and negotiation skills.
Technology has become central to all business
missions. As IT professionals, we not only focus Challenges in Moving into Leadership Roles
on just fixing problems, but we're also building Moving from a technical role to a leadership
solutions, automating operations, analyzing data role can be transformative, but it is not without
for strategic decisions, and ensuring cybersecurity its challenges. Many IT professionals moving

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