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Would You Enjoy the Jump From a Technical to a Managerial Role in Your IT Company?

June 16, 2016 No Comments

Featured article by Calvin Paige, Independent Technology Author

If you are currently in a fairly senior technical position with responsibility for a team of people doing similar work to you – for example a lead developer – you may feel that you hit a point in your career where you have to make a decision. All of the roles higher up in your organization that require the kind of technical knowledge you have – for instance technical director roles – are far more strategy and management focused than your current job and would leave you doing very different activities each day, being far less hands on with the technical things your department or company currently does.

Do You Want to Move Up?

For some technical people, the role you are currently in is basically the goal, and they will be happy to see that as the peak of their career and stay in similar roles, perhaps aiming for higher salaries and more responsibility by moving to bigger projects or more prestigious companies. However, if you don’t want to stop climbing the career ladder then you have to prepare yourself for the jump from a hands on technical role to one that is largely managerial. This is not a decision to be taken lightly as many of the skills you have accumulated will no longer be used every day, and you’ll also need a whole raft of new skills in things you may not find anywhere near as interesting. You can study in your own time to prepare yourself, for example by doing an AACSB online MBA with a good business school like Northeastern University, but getting the skills is only part of what will make you feel comfortable in a less technical management role.

What Do You Enjoy About Your Technical Role?

One of the key deciders in whether you are likely to enjoy making the move upwards, and should start planning for it with things like online MBA programs, is what aspects of your current role appeal to you most. If you enjoy calmly sitting by yourself and coding, and much prefer those parts of your day to times when you are explaining things to clients, designing fixes, holding team meetings and working on project plans, then you are probably already doing more management tasks than you really want to be and would not like the jump. However, if you enjoy problem solving, leading your staff, and working in a client facing capacity, you may find a managerial role will suit you perfectly.

Management Styles

All kinds of different management styles exist and they all have their merits. What is important if you are wondering about aiming for a more senior role is whether you feel comfortable in yours. If you feel like you are actually just one of the team, but the one who has been there the longest and has been nominated to report back to the ‘bosses’, then perhaps a more senior management role isn’t right for you. If you feel like you have a good management style and have done well at mentoring and motivating your team as well as managing the workload, then you are far more likely to find you can apply the things you would learn in an online MBA degree to develop yourself into a senior executive.

It can be a hard choice to make, but think about how you would feel about your role changing before you plan for your next career move.

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