Leadership in Information Technology - Research Paper Example

Leadership in Information Technology According to experts characteristics of successful leaders of information technology (IT) organizations being business persons include to maintain an overall view of business needs; able to cross department boundaries and understand technology from a business perspective; innovative and flexible; and able to communicate well. These all characters can be observed in CEOs of IT firms, they are important for leaders at all levels of the new, flatter, more interconnected organization. (Vail, 2007). Yet how do organizations develop leaders capable of communicating and leading across previously defined boundaries? If technically skilled individuals are promoted to leadership positions, how can they make the transition to lead? Too often IT workers build great systems, but automate the wrong processes or track the wrong information. Examining various leadership development models, this study has identified three benchmark models that outline attributes of effective leaders and plans for leadership development. These leadership development models include programs in education, private organization, and hospital industry of US. The three models are compared in order to assess the leadership style they accommodate. A pilot survey was conducted with IT leaders in three organizations and two industry groups. It is at this level that the effectiveness of sound strategic leadership often loses its strength. (Lewis & Lewis, 2005) Literature on leadership needs to be applied and results tested at this level. Since we are interested in information technology leadership, we will select information intense organizations. A primary responsibility of a leader is to train others to lead and that a leader must espouse and live values. Moreover, effective leaders must be self-aware. (OOChart, 2004). Most of the people usually disagree that leadership can be developed. Business environment knowledge is judged to be a leader's most critical knowledge domain. The same ranking could be used for more than one domain. Using the modes, the domain that tie with business environment is knowledge of self. However, little population ranks self-knowledge as most critical. Using means, the rank order of knowledge domains is as follows: Business environments (1.5) Technology (2.14) Self and human resources (2.57 and 2.57) Finance (3.86) Much of the literature available addresses leadership at a strategic level. Clearly the most critical role of effective IT leaders is perceived to be the communicator role, followed by facilitator, guide, partner, and collaborator. Informal management styles seem to be preferred in technology intense organizations. (Lewis, S. & Lewis, 2005) The roles of tactician, technical guru, and human resources leader receives middle rankings while commander, servant, dictator, king or queen receive the lowest ranking for effective IT leaders. Congruent with this ranking of roles for effective IT leaders, team building is considered the most important function, followed by management, then creating. Leadership in Information Technology in Private Industry When the information technological skills of leadership are combined with an ability to use software to solve IT problems as in Acorn Computer City, New York, leaders of the organization are better equipped to move among the various agencies comprising our society. It was assessed whether leaders of IT firm can be trained, what characteristics are important for IT leaders of the organization, and what is the best environment to encourage IT leadership. While strategic leadership is possible at all levels within the organization, there is a need for work on leadership at the project leader/project manager level. As Sear (2008) pointed out, IT leaders have a difficult time making the transition from skilled technical work to project leader. Not only are they better able to use software to manage their own personal environment, but they are able to transfer those skills to multiple employment settings and respond to economic- and business-based problems as well. Much of the earlier work within organization involved each and every employee of the organization in its development. However, male employees of the organization tended to focus on hardware development. The leader of the organization contends that the computing structure possesses an inherent male, which in turn causes females to lose interest and be closed out of technology based work environments. Since the 1970s, the number of high-paying industrial jobs has declined all over the country. (Staggenborg, 2008). Since the 1960s, young people have been affected by the growth in technology, a decreasing sense of community, workplace demand for higher technical literacy, and significant pressure for educational reform (Epstein, 2006). Technology is viewed as instrumental for creating a climate of economic growth that generates jobs and provides adequate incomes for individuals. If technology-related skills are fundamental to the post-industrial economy, and if females tend to shy away from available technology, and if the success or failure of organizations depends upon the skills each individual brings to the group, then women will have increasing difficulty competing in the turbulent career environment replacing the once stable employment scene. IT leadership in Schools This article brings together ideas from information technology used in Stuyvesant High school of New York City and leadership development.. Records point out the fact that technology developments are more attractive to IT teaching staffs than other staff members. IT usage is also ignorant by the individuals working at leading positions in schools. (Boesel, D., ALsalam, N., & Smith, 2008)By incorporating greater stress on developing, working with, and interpreting leadership in combination with technologically based skills within the curriculum, more advanced work environments can be created at schools. Groups succeed on the talents, values, and ideas of their membership. The skills of individuals help the group grow or stagnate. We know that advanced technical skills lead to higher paying positions in the economy and according to Riley (2005), 60% of new jobs will require these skills. Currently, only 20% of the workforce possesses those skills. Technical skills enable individuals to earn higher incomes. However, inequities exist with regard to technology usage. A study by Boesel (2008) found a strong male dominance in school computing activities. In before and after school use, females accounted for less than 30% of the users. Public schools are viewed as the principal vehicle for promoting equity among economic strata. Access to technology in schools is perceived as fostering equity and enhancing student performance (Strohl, 2007). Those encouraging its use anticipate that information technology will also prepare students for the global economy. Groups or organizations are largely responsible for making positive changes in communities. Their influence is often far greater than individuals working separately (North Dakota State University, 2006). Membership in groups enables youth and adults to develop technical skills that are as critical to the economic stability and growth of the larger society as computer skills. The leadership skills individuals develop in organizations represent specialized skills, practical knowledge, or contextual strategies enabling them to assume roles in organizations, groups, communities, schools, or the government. These skills help them perform competently when dealing with the needs and demands of various constituencies. (Epstein, 2006) The development of leadership skills needs to start early if youth are to get a head start in assuming responsible technical positions in society. Children begin group experiences in preschool by becoming involved in play and learning groups. These group experiences help them to develop the human relations skills so necessary for creating competent family, social, and community groups. By assuming various roles within groups, individuals develop a variety of strategies for working with others. They carry these initial skills into school settings. There, through student organization involvement, they are provided with opportunities to further develop skills in conducting meetings, using parliamentary procedures, setting goals, and evaluating productivity and other skills. Student groups are vehicles for promoting leadership development because they provide an opportunity to practice skills in a non-threatening environment. Balancing technology skills among leaders and teaching staffs working at schools will require reexamining how leaders interact with technology. Studies are just now beginning to emerge around this issue. TWO theories have relevance for achieving greater equity through technology education. One is human capital theory, which focuses upon helping individuals acquire the skills and abilities that strengthen productivity and potential earning capacity. The theory examines how individuals use free choice to maximize their usefulness (Kraut, R., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukhopadhyay, T., & Scherlis, 2004). The second relevant theory is that of social capital theory. This theory focuses upon relationships, structures, and norms that enable individuals to achieve their needs (Finch & Mortimer, 2005). Both theories provide a fundamental base for delivering educational programs in consumer sciences to diverse audiences. The social capital theory is found in the curricular emphases on practical problems. This approach was a fundamental part of the work of Brown and Paolucci. Their ideas were put into action by such states as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Nebraska, and others (Vail, 2007) . As individuals work on practical problems they confront in everyday life, they question, share ideas, assess levels of performance, check ideas against valued ends, and use team-based approaches to solve problems. Strengthening productivity and earning capacity along with solving practical problems based upon valued ends enable individuals to carry out the multiple role expectations of today's society. Individuals are expected to sustain strong bonds while contributing to a high performance workplace. Being able to function effectively in work arenas is fundamental to maintaining an economically competitive society. Human capital theory and the social capital theory serve as a foundation for designing education programs that respond to concerns regarding leadership development, and ITskills. If schools continue on the path of the past; that is, rote drill and practice, little use of tools in educational settings, and strict adherence to the textbook, students may be able to obtain low-paying entry level jobs upon leaving high-school in the short run and school leadership will also suffer badly in long run as they will not be able to compete with this fast changing technological world. In the classroom too, it is needed to view technology as part of a comprehensive change process that encourages revision, reconfiguration (moving the parts around), and reinventing (creating new designs) (American Council on Education, 2005) . In classrooms, leaders of education need to be clear as to the types of technological understanding they expect from students. Curricular resources are gradually coming on the market and on line that are beginning to examine this issue. New Zealand has provided one such framework. They have developed a taxonomy of IT skills expected of leadership in schools. These skills focus on communication, computation, information-based skills, problem solving, self-management and competition, social skills, and physical skills. The skills are articulated and designed to move the leadership in field of education to increasingly higher levels of proficiency with regard to technology. Leadership in Information Technology in Hospitals While one would like to think that within a decade our resuscitated healthcare system would have the latest bioscience wizardry virtually available to all, far more basic problems need to be solved first. Advancement of IT used by the leadership in hospitals like Downtown Hospital of New York City will hopefully be part of that solution. The current system is fraught with dysfunction, fragmentation, and, in some areas, is itself on "life support." Nearly half a million Americans are not insured or underinsured. Almost half of our nation's hospitals are operating at a loss. Many emergency departments are so overcrowded that the average wait time is longer than a cross-country flight. All this could have been solved by utilizing information technology at all levels by the leaders of healthcare. Moving our sights from the hospital to the physician office does not present a better picture. The "one-two punch" of declining reimbursement and increasing practice hassles has led to widespread physician dissatisfaction, particularly in the primary care fields of internal medicine and family medicine. These physicians are retiring in mid-career or leaving practice for other non-patient care opportunities. Nor can we count on the next generation of doctors to fill in the gap. Each year fewer and fewer U.S. medical students chose to learn application of information technology in these primary care fields, and if it weren't for the international medical students accepting these training positions, the United States would already be feeling the effects of the impending shortage. If these challenges weren't enough, the population is aging; in spite of the dire IOM pronouncements of iatrogenic deaths (44,000-88,000/year) (Kohn et al. 2000), more people are surviving for longer periods of time with multiple chronic (and expensive) conditions. The implications of this demographic time bomb for Medicare are staggering (Rettenmaier and Saving 2004). Sachs's vision of patients biding their time in the ICU looking at their results and medical information is far-fetched and, if actualized, would lead to further waste of scarce resources. One of the reasons emergency departments have 6 to 8 hour waits is lack of bed availability in the critical care units. In the real world, when critically ill patients recover enough to sit up and focus on a computer screen (for medical reference reading or to download games), that patient is well enough to leave the ICU. How about the same vision, but for patients in a regular hospital bed? This might be a reasonable vision, assuming that the hospital really wanted to divert limited bandwidth from projects that involve, for example, mobilizing data and images for clinicians, but again, in the real world, patients aren't hospitalized except when severely ill. When patients are hospitalized for elective surgery, they are typically discharged once conscious and stable. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with extending ubiquitous Internet access to hospitalized patients, at a time when there is legitimate concern about just having sufficient hospital beds for our population, this seems at best frivolous. The concept of communication with a physician via e-mail is not really a future capability; it is available now and used to a very limited extent. What stands in the way of its widespread use is not the absence of cutting-edge communication technology, but rather a broken payment system. Physicians are paid relatively well for procedures, relatively poorly for office visits, and not at all for telephone or e-mail advice. Increasing the bandwidth for patients without fixing reimbursement is more likely to lead to a future state where frustrated patients complain, "My doctor doesn't return my phone calls or answer my e-mail." One of the more contentious but critically important issues today is the so-called misalignment of the costs and benefits of health IT. Essentially, the argument is that under our current fragmented healthcare system, physicians and hospitals pay for IT, and most of the benefit flows to payers. The Center for Information Technology Leadership modeled the cost and benefit of an ambulatory computerized physician order entry system, and concluded that 89 percent of the benefit accrued to payers, with only 11 percent flowing to providers (Johnston et al. 2003). Nelson references the landmark Wang study, which looked at system benefits of an advanced EHR in an office practice. Wang concluded that primarily by reducing pharmacy expenditures and avoiding redundant testing, payers would save about $86,000 per physician over five years-thus making the first real economic argument for payers funding EHRs for physicians (Wang et al. 2003). Nelson misinterprets Wang and asserts that physicians stand to gain $86,000 over five years. Not that there isn't evidence that EHR implementation can improve a physician practice's bottom line; a recent study by Robert Miller examined the economics of EHR adoption in small physician practices and concluded that physicians can indeed benefit financially from EHR implementation, on average about $32,000 a year per physician (Miller et al. 2005). Perhaps more important than what Miller found (that physicians break even or better with EHR implementations) was what he didn't find-dear evidence of intentional quality improvement or of better care. Unfortunately, that is consistent with most of the published reports on EHRs and quality improvement (outside of dosed systems such as the VA or Kaiser). This points to the critical need for a road map that includes practice redesign and transformation-which is certainly as important, if not more important, than the enabling infrastructures of EHRs and robust connectivity. Unfortunately, Nelson's otherwise excellent operational plans leave out this crucial component. Healthcare is very broken. Increasing financial and demographic pressures, as well as reasonable expectations from consumers and purchasers of a healthcare system that improves quality and safety, dictate the framework of a transformative solution, and not fanciful thinking. Healthcare transformation does not simply "happen" in the presence of IT or health information exchange; however, with appropriate use of IT by the leadership and reimbursement reform, IT and health information exchange can serve as the infrastructure and enabler of transformation. Essential qualities of healthcare transformation include: * A shift from the current reactive-episodic model of care to one that encourages proactive-continuous care (practice redesign) * A system that encourages chronic cares management and care coordination * Increased use of team-based care, where appropriate * A system that encourages fewer office visits and greater use of electronic care (where appropriate) * A system that encourages clinician-patient collaborations * A decrease in unnecessary process friction in care delivery-and an increase in necessary quality friction * Pay-for-quality incentives The road to achieving real healthcare transformation enabled by the best possible use of healthcare IT by the healthcare leadership is long and difficult, but that is not reason for pessimism. More progress on reducing barriers and creating accelerants for change has been made in the past 18 months than has occurred in the preceding 18 years. Achieving "last-mile connectivity" with physicians so that the end result is better and safer care will take a bold and realistic vision and road maps that show not only safe routes, but also meaningful destinations. References Boesel, D., ALsalam, N., & Smith, T. NL (2008). Educational and labor market performance of GED recipients. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Education. Epstein, C. F. (2006). Deceptive institutions. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. Johnston, D., E. Pan, J. Walker, D.W. Bates, B. Middleton. (2003). The Value of Computerized Order Entry in Ambulatory Settings. Boston: Center for Information Technology Leadership. Kraut, R., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukhopadhyay, T., & Scherlis, W. (2004). Why people use the internet [On-line]. Kohn, L.T., J. Corrigan, and M.S. Donaldson (eds). (2000). To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Lewis, S. & Lewis, J. L. (2005). 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