Category: IT Leadership

You’ve heard me talk about it before, leadership is an art. There certainly is some science, which provides the rules. Then, we use judgment and creativity based on experience to apply those rules to find a solution that works. Leadership courses— like the Lead From Where You Are course we offer through MOR—are great for […]

As we march forward to a new academic and fiscal year, I have no doubt that you are busy. You might be doing too much, and by doing so you might actually be hurting the productivity of your team. Not empowering your team means you are spending time over-supervising them. A properly empowered team is […]

I’ve discussed Emotional Intelligence (EI) before, but I feel that it is something that we must continue to work on. Like any ability, I believe that we can get better, but it takes focus. EI is increasingly recognized as a critical factor for success in the professional environment. It encompasses the ability to understand, manage, […]

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni is a book I reviewed in 2022 in a 5-part series that began with this blog post. One point that I want to revisit is the concept of team membership and your “first team.” As administrators at NYU, we are all members of many teams. Some […]

Culture is very powerful. Like all things powerful it can be good or bad. My definition of organizational culture is a set of beliefs, values, and attitudes that result in the behaviors of members. Our teams have cultures as do our departments, schools, campuses as well as NYU.  When we are in a situation with […]

Last week we held the Digital Infrastructure and Systems Governance Committee (DISGC) meeting.  We hold this meeting 4-6 times a year and it is the senior IT governance committee.  We presented them with two decisions and some updates.   We recommended that they approve the Data, Analytics and Insights Council as a new governance body that […]

Share these New Tech Resources with your community I want to make the IT leadership community aware of some recently-published and revised resources for you to share with your staff. IT professionals usually have more access to more information than most other NYU staff, so there’s more responsibility for us to be responsible stewards of […]

I want to talk about data privacy. NYU collects a lot of sensitive data, and IT has to handle this data in a responsible, secure, and transparent way. As IT leaders, we set the example. That means we have to make sure we’re following best practices ourselves while insisting on rigorous compliance from our staff—and […]

Another question that I recently got from the feedback form is about how to support the human behind the work. How can we identify folks who are feeling vulnerable and support them better? There are lots of reasons why people may be feeling stressed. Certainly there are lots of external factors in the world right […]

Following on to my recent message about the relationship between business and technology, and in response to an Ask Me Anything suggestion, I would like to talk about our role as SMEs (subject matter experts).  Our roles require a combination of technical knowledge, broad industry knowledge, and most importantly the ability to effectively communicate this […]