Are you the CIO (or IT Leader), or the C-suite's personal Help Desk?

It's a common trap for IT leaders. You've spent years to get where you are only to find yourself at a fellow executive's house fixing a laptop or being treated like an "order-taker" rather than a peer.

If you feel like you're constantly shoveling tasks from one deck to the other, it's time to change things.

The Problem: Invisible IT Work

80-90% of IT work is invisible to the business (my estimate!). Because people don't see the discovery, risk analysis, or testing, they assume IT is "simple" and "fast" and "hey, you are in IT so you can do anything that needs to be done in IT". This can lead to:

Shadow IT: Departments buying software on personal cards because they "don't want to use the tools we have".

The Cost-Center theme: IT is viewed as a "cost line" to be cut, rather than a "profit enabler" to be leveraged.

The Solution: Speak Business, Not Tech

Stop talking strange technical language—servers, databases, and firewalls mean nothing to the CFO or anyone outside IT. Start talking business value and getting time back in the day and reducing risk. Show people how your team makes life easier for everyone.

Don't just ask for a budget for things without connecting them to some part of the business. Show the ROI of internally managed systems versus vendor-driven ones - unless you just don't have the scale to do it internally or you absolutely need the external vendor system. Align your IT strategy so closely with the business strategy that they become indistinguishable.

From Service Provider to Servant Leader

Move from a service provider to a "servant leader" who removes obstacles for the team and delivers measurable business outcomes. Level up your game and join me in the IT Leadership Academy.