This has been a challenging time for us in the association field. Between the economy and the shifting role of the organization in our society, we've had to ask ourselves some tough questions and rise to new challenges. Nowhere has this been more evident than in technology. Technology can longer merely serve the backoffice needs of our organizations, we have to serve the business.  For a couple of years now, I've been insisting that a shift like that - from servers to services - takes IT staff that are true leaders. 

So I was very interested to come across this TechRepublic article today then, "7 Reasons We Need Managers, Not Leaders."

The premise is that we have plenty of people telling us where we need to go, and too few people who know how to get us there. I'm curious about that. I agree that I see many great visions made moot by a failure to execute well. You can't afford to have good leadership without strong management. But I still feel strongly that there are not enough IT folks out there who run their shops with vision, as leaders. I still here many IT folks who are so consumed with help desk and infrastructure support, they can't be bothered to think about how IT might play a role in making the advocacy department more effective, or help the communications staff reach new audiences. And great management without leadership simply won't be effective in our current climate.

We're headed somewhere new right now.  What do you think?  What do we need more of to get there?

Oh, and one more argument for the fact that we don't need so many leaders: