IT Recognition & Leadership

 A post showed up in my LinkedIn feed recently that stopped me in my tracks. It got me thinking about the health and well-being of IT teams, and more specifically, the people I lead.

I have spent 30 years in IT here in Silicon Valley. In that time, one thing has remained stubbornly consistent: IT teams are taken for granted. We are the glue holding complex processes together, and most of the time, nobody notices until something breaks.

I rose through the ranks the hard way. Front-line support, increasing responsibility, and eventually leading the very teams I once was a part of. That experience gave me something invaluable: a deep appreciation for what these people go through every single day.

Here is what I believe without reservation. The head of any IT department has one non-negotiable responsibility above all others: protect your people. That means managing their workload, shielding them from unnecessary chaos, and creating conditions where they can actually do their best work without burning out.

At my previous company, where I spent 13 years and built what I genuinely consider a world-class support organization, the executives largely took IT for granted. The old saying, "if it is working, we are doing our jobs," sounds harmless enough, but it erases all the effort, planning, and late nights that make continuity of service possible. Recognition rarely came from within.

The moment that sticks with me most happened at a sales kickoff meeting around 2014. A guest speaker from VMware stood in front of 150 people and asked one simple question: Have you thanked your IT team today? It took someone from outside the company to start a conversation that should have been happening all along. The SVP of Sales asked me to stand and be recognized. It felt good, but it also felt like it should not have required a guest speaker to make it happen.

Recognizing people for good work should not need a catalyst. It should be instinctive.

But this is not really about IT getting a moment in the spotlight. It is about something bigger. Every experience I have had, every leader who invested in me, every difficult situation I navigated, helped shape the way I lead today. I did not get into technology for applause. I got into it because I genuinely love what it makes possible for people.

Burnout is real. It is quiet, it is cumulative, and by the time you see it, you are often too late. Flexibility and empathy are not soft skills. They are the foundation of a functional, sustainable team. Nobody on my team should ever feel overlooked or worn down without someone in their corner.

That is the standard I hold myself to. Every day.

Real Leadership comes from Empathy

 Here's the rewrite:

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Real Leadership Comes from Empathy

I came across an article in INC. magazine today that I could not stop thinking about. It focused on a CEO who summed up his company's remote work decision in ten words. Those ten words say everything about what emotionally intelligent leadership looks like in practice.

Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, surveyed his employees about where they wanted to work. The results came back: 7% wanted to be in the office full time, 31% preferred a hybrid arrangement, and 62% wanted to work fully from home. His response? "Sounds great. Do whatever you want. If you get your work done, that's all that matters."

That is it. No committee. No policy debate. No performative flexibility theater. Just a leader who listened and got out of the way.

This is consistent with who Dan Price has always been. In 2015, he restructured his entire company's compensation model and set a minimum salary of $70,000 for every employee. He ran the numbers, believed in his people, and made the call. It was not about optics. It was about genuinely understanding what his staff needed to live well and do good work.

COVID changed the rules for everyone, whether companies were ready or not. The organizations that responded with empathy and adaptability kept their people. Those that clung to rigid, outdated expectations found themselves on the wrong end of the Great Resignation, watching talented employees walk out the door in search of workplaces that actually respected their lives outside of work.

So what is emotional intelligence, and why does it matter so much right now?

The dictionary defines it as the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships with good judgment and empathy. That definition sounds clinical, but the reality is deeply personal.

Think about what the past few years looked like for most families. College students and high schoolers doing classwork from their bedrooms. Parents managing their kids' education while keeping up with their own jobs. Households with four or five people all competing for bandwidth at the same time. My own family was no exception. My wife and I were grocery shopping for her parents and dropping food at their garage, kept at a distance while they disinfected everything we touched. That was our routine for months.

Now multiply that by every single person on your team. Each of them was carrying their own version of that story. As a leader, you are not just managing deliverables. You are managing people who are managing entire lives at the same time. That reality has to be part of how you lead.

Will Rogers once said he never met a man he did not like. When his life was adapted into a Broadway musical in 1991, his character described a practice rooted in his Native American heritage: walking around to the other side of a person to see what they were seeing. To understand what drives someone, what worries them, what they are working toward. That is empathy in its most practical form, and it is how I try to approach every conversation with my team.

When I work with someone, I always come back to three questions:

• What has their experience been?
• What motivates them?
• How can I help them reach their personal and professional goals?

A leader who asks those questions, and actually listens to the answers, builds something different than a leader who just manages tasks.

The INC. article also included a list of leadership practices worth keeping visible:

Show genuine personal interest in your people. Communicate expectations clearly and early. Set reasonable norms around response times for messages and email. Check in regularly, not to monitor, but to support. Coach rather than micromanage. Give people room to take smart risks and explore ideas. Treat mistakes as learning, not failure. Recognize good work loudly and often. When things go sideways, give feedback that helps rather than harms.

I would add one more. Invest in your people's future, not just their current role. The best thing you can do for your team is make sure they are growing, that they have the skills to do their jobs not just today but in the environment that is coming. Workplaces are changing fast. A good leader makes sure their people are ready for what is next.

High emotional intelligence, paired with strong communication and a genuine commitment to your team's growth, is what separates managers from leaders. It is also what keeps good people from leaving.

What is your EQ?