GIS Managers Summit session recap: Transitioning from Manager to Leader
GIS Managers Summit session recap: Transitioning from Manager to Leader
from @AdamCarnow
It’s hard to believe it’s been a month since the GIS Managers Summit! It was a day of powerful presentations, discussions, and networking – more to come later – but first, I wanted to recap the panel I was honored to host.
To recap, or if you couldn’t make the summit this year, myself and three great GIS leaders got together on stage to talk about transitioning from manager to leader.
- @LizParrish_Geospatial of H-E-B, a grocery retailer in the southern United States and Northern Mexico, who also worked for Esri for several years
- Erin Fashoway from the Montana State Library
- @EricAbrams from GFT, a global AEC firm
A month later, I’m still soaking in the great conversation – the most popular quote of the day was clear…
This is the perfect explanation for the contradiction and dilemma required to overcome when transitioning from manager to leader.
Additionally, we discussed the importance of essential skills (formerly known as soft skills) over hard (or technical) skills and which ones were most important. See Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What’s the Difference? Another great point that was discussed was this bit of advice from Harvey-lee.com: “Hire for Attitude. Train for Hard Skills. Mentor for Soft Skills.”
But there were lots of additional great unique ideas – here is a key takeaway that I think stood out, from each of them:
My personal mission statement is "Impact the Outcome." – Liz
As a leader, this not only means getting work completed, but impacting the people around you, from individuals, to teams, to the organization.
Moving from prioritizing work based on first in/first out or what's easiest, to prioritizing what will help drive better decision making and therefore has greater ROI. Moving from the "I have to" mindset to the "I get to" mindset, and moving from a focus on personal growth to a focus on team and program growth.
Leadership is built on strong relationships and teams – Erin
As Montana’s GIS Coordinator, I have had the opportunity to foster meaningful connections across sectors and industries. Budgets are fleeting, but good relationship endure—they are the support structure to enable long-term success.
Externally, your networks expand your reach; internally, a strong team is vital to turning vision into reality. Both require core skills to build a successful foundation: effective communication, dependability, empathy, and trust.
Put yourself out of a job – Eric
With this concept, you need to strategically assess where your organization needs to be and how you can empower your peers to take ownership. During my time at Iowa DOT, I tried to control all decisions regarding architecture, energy avoiding IT, and building web maps for various offices. Once I realized that I was the bottleneck to progress and team development, I understood that I needed to trust my colleagues more.
This shift allowed me to free myself from mundane tasks and focus on more important responsibilities to grow the organization. It gave my coworkers ownership and created advocates to advance GIS. I used this to build out a federated GIS environment that empowered staff to use the framework my team and I created.
If you’re curious to know more, reach out to any of us!
And if you missed this year’s GIS Managers Summit, keep an eye out here for when we announce the next one!
