Why I Want to Rule My Tiny World

admin March 12, 2008 leadership 6 Comments

A couple of people have asked me why I took this job. I think there are two questions here: why did I leave a large research university to head IT at a small liberal arts college and why do I want an IT leadership position. I’ll answer the second one today and the other one another day: it’s not so much about the IT as it is about the leadership. I feel that we spend so much time at work, it should be one of the most important aspects of our lives: fulfilling, energizing, creative, engaging, etc. And I think the leader of a given organization is the one best able to create such a culture, to transform organizations, to deliver the right products in the right way with the right people. You can be a change agent anywhere but it’s a lot easier if you’re the lead.

However, sometimes work isn’t that much fun. Sometimes it’s just labor. When this is the case, it’s helpful to have play time, to labor less and play more. I see people putting in 50 and 60 hour work weeks and they don’t seem engaged or leaderful about their time, they seem to be slaves to what they imagine to be their bosses expectation, as if all communication had to happen in real time with a note of panic: urgent! a staff member quit!!! we need to freak out NOW!!! I thought technology was supposed to enhance our life, not raise the bar! So I figured if I were the leader, then I could more easily affect our community’s expectations.

So, basically, it’s all out of self-interest. I want to labor less, play more, and have work be as fun as possible, and I know of no other way to do this other than to lead it.

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6 Responses to “Why I Want to Rule My Tiny World”

  1. seth vidal said:

    Mar 12, 08 at 8:06 pm

    I simply cannot imagine where you would have worked that had a ‘FREAK OUT NOW’ default response to everything. 🙂

  2. Gahlord said:

    Mar 12, 08 at 9:03 pm

    Leaderful.

    Affect community expectations.

    You rule.

  3. Art Blog » Why I Want to Rule My Tiny World said:

    Mar 13, 08 at 4:32 am

    […] The CTO Project put an intriguing blog post on Why I Want to Rule My Tiny WorldHere’s a quick excerpt […]

  4. Sukey said:

    Mar 15, 08 at 8:42 am

    Leaderful – I expect this term to soon replace “change agent” as the zeitgeist management catch-phrase. Whose up for forwarding this post to the Harvard Business Review?

  5. kc said:

    Apr 15, 08 at 9:02 am

    this post is a breath of fresh air for me. i want to be the agent of change, too, CTO, but I want it on my terms! You carry an olive branch and I carry a bazooka…ok it’s a nerf bazooka and i dont intimidate anyone, but it gets me through the day.

    Well done. you’ve articulated what i was unable to.

  6. admin said:

    Apr 15, 08 at 7:22 pm

    I could always hit someone with the olive branch. Poke someone’s eye out. Look at it this way: an olive branch is just a cleverly disguised spear.

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