Embracing the Challenge of Leadership.

• Author: PHILLIPS, JOHN T.

The use of computer technology on office desktops for document publishing, business-to-business communications, and organizational records is now an accepted norm. Almost any enterprise that creates, stores, and retrieves information to create products and services expects employees to have appropriate computer technology skills. In fact, most organizations assume that new employees are computer literate when they arrive to begin work -- in stark contrast to past expectations that all new office employees would need some basic computer training.

The expectation of computer literacy is both a burden and an opportunity. The specific technology installed in any workplace constantly changes in sophistication and function. Even though computers have become easier to use over time, their continually advancing capabilities and the increasing variety of available functions and features result in a consistent need for more training. Organizations able to meet the challenge are in a good position to direct technology-based workplace initiatives successfully.

For organizations, a marketing posture that communicates technology leadership can be a key to winning new customers. For individuals, eagerly embracing the challenge of technology leadership projects a well-informed, capable, and confident image -- a key leadership attribute regardless of profession. So how does one become sufficiently technology literate and professionally credible enough to accept a technology leadership role, should such a position be offered?

Successful technology leaders see the "technology forest" and understand the "technology trees." They must be able to manage change -- in products, organizational priorities, and workplace expectations. They clearly articulate and demonstrate technology initiatives' costs, benefits, and impacts to both decision-makers and technology users. True technology leaders are rare individuals, often well-rewarded financially, and usually in short supply.

Technology-Based Office Cultures

It is impossible to be a technology leader without a firm understanding of computer technology's overall effect on the workplace and personal productivity. Cultural developments in recent years affect expectations of what technology can accomplish and how it should affect workers' lives. Without a clear grasp of these fundamental issues, justifying and managing technology projects can be a daunting task. It is easy to become lost in the specific hardware, software, and systems "trees" and not have a clear vision of the "forest" (i.e., business objectives accomplished by leveraging technology systems and people to be more productive and successful).

Today's most fundamental technology is the personal computer. Now viewed as personal workstations, they have forever altered the landscape of the modern office. Fast data-processing chips, large-capacity disk drives, high-quality printers, and multifunction software and peripherals have created powerful office tools to empower the individual. Office workers now assume that they will be able to perform many tasks and then share their data and documents with others.

Even within workgroups dedicated to narrow specialties such as accounting and finance, one finds spreadsheets, word processors, graphics software, and data downloads from external databases used in an integrated manner to create reports...