Read IT Manager's Handbook: Getting Your New Job Done for Free Online

Then spend your time addressing those needs. Issues to consider include the following:
• Your customers are not necessarily retail customers (although they could be). More likely, your customers are other internal departments in the company and your boss. Different jobs have different customers, and there are departments (such as Sales and Marketing) who should spend all day figuring out what their external customers need. IT, however, commonly serves other departments within the company, such as sales, marketing, accounting, and management.
• Figure out what your customers’ needs are. Are they products or services? Data and information? Reduced costs? Mobile services? Improved efficiency or productivity?
• Ask your customers directly about their needs. Set up meetings with representatives from different departments, ask questions, note the answers, and change the way you’re doing business to reflect your customer needs and concerns.
    Keep Your Department Central to the Company’s Operations
    Make sure the strategy mentioned in the previous section is carefully aligned with the goals of the entire organization. This is critical. If the needs of your immediate boss are out of alignment with what the entire company is doing, you have a serious problem. (See the section “Company Mission, Vision, and Values” in Chapter 2, Managing Your IT Team, on page 34 about the company’s mission.)
    Let the rest of the organization know what you’re doing in IT. To many of the other department managers, IT may not mean much more than “the people at the Help Desk who can reset passwords.” Periodically, have a meeting with the other department heads. Let them know what you’re doing in IT, what you’ve accomplished, and what you plan to do. With a little luck, light bulbs will start going off. They may see uses for the technology that you hadn’t thought of. Get some good discussion going and you may learn a way to deliver a lot more value by modifying your plans slightly. See the section “Sharing Information” in Chapter 10, Working with Users, on page 266 .
    The reality is that in today’s corporate world, IT departments are by default in the middle of action. Everyone is aware of the values that computerization can bring to an enterprise. Wineries, toy shops, bookstores, and sandwich places now have sophisticated computerized inventory systems, customer service mechanisms, online ordering components, and pay by mobile phone capabilities. Information technology is everywhere. (For a more detailed discussion of this complex issue, see the section “Consumerization of IT” in Chapter 10, Working with Users on page 271 and Chapter 11, Connectivity: Social Media, Handhelds, and More on page 287 . )
    1.5 Leadership versus Management
    Before you became a manager, the word “management” was probably the focus of your career path. Now that you’re a manager, “leadership” should be in your sights.
    If you do a search on “leadership vs. management” you’ll find lots of definitions and examples. However, the common theme is that a manager is generally focused on daily operations and meeting deadlines and budgets, whereas a leader is more of a visionary and strategic planner, someone who can transform an organization, who inspires and motivates. From another perspective, managers are focused on the short term , whereas leaders are focused on the long term . Table 1.2 describes the differences between leadership and management, and has been highly regarded as the definitive comparison for years
    Table 1.2. Comparing Leadership and Management
  
  Management
  Leadership
  Creating an agenda
  Planning and budgeting—establishing detailed steps and timetables for achieving needed results and then allocating the resources necessary to make that happen
  Establishing direction—developing a vision of the future, often the distant future, and strategies for producing the changes needed to achieve that