Some of the IT managers among us still remember the day we helped liberate someone from the era of “snail mail” with their first e-mail. And it’s those heroic moments that shine out in our careers. We are here because we have felt the after-glow of technology empowering ourselves and other people.

Here are some IT management leadership strategies to help you better connect with the people you serve.

1. Walk in the shoes of your users.
Sitting down to a meeting with his CEO, an IT manager noticed that the CEO looked very tired after a business trip. A few polite questions revealed that she was constantly inundated with e-mails and documents, which took huge amounts of her time to sort through. On her trip, the CEO and her secretary had been unable to find key documents for an important presentation; these had eventually been found in a physical file, and couriered rather than e-mailed.

Afterwards, the IT manager slipped out of the office, and tore up his grand plan for an expensive technical overhaul. He then spent a number of days discovering that all users had similar problems as the CEO. The implementation of a simple document management system for minimal cost dramatically changed the productivity of the company.

Often we complain that the users don’t understand technology. However, if you walk in their shoes and understand exactly what they do, you can pinpoint low-cost strategies that can make you a hero.

2. Liberate your people.
We need to be gently reminded that our users have grown up and are ready to take the big step of looking after themselves (gone are the days of talking people through changing their desktop wallpaper). Large companies such as BP and Google are showing that users can effectively support themselves, and are proving that such a strategy can cause a large increase in productivity – both on the user side of the fence, and the technical support side.

With staff budgets under the microscope, a staid management may now be open to this idea, which actually saves time and money.

3. Your biggest assets can be the office geeks.
Despairing of super-users and know-it-alls who ran amok within the network, a network manager gave them root access to an old server, with the agreement they would leave all else alone. Later that year, he received much credit as numbers of senior people in the organization were relying on that machine for all sorts of purposes he himself hadn’t even considered. Not only was it the best-run and most secure server on his network, it had become a truly effective resource for the organization.

4. Speak the language of finance.
We have all done budget presentations where we know a new technology or strategy is going to help the company’s bottom line. However, all we receive in response are polite, blank stares – reflecting that those who hold the purse strings have understood little of what we have said, and believed less.

So make sure you can talk in terms of quarterly results, ROI and TCO. Talking finance lets you present your case in a language they understand.

5. "Eat your own dog food."
In other words, try the new programs first before you serve them to anyone else. This famous Microsoft® saying also applies to your own developers – it’s a sure way of building relevant software. Perhaps stick it on the wall: we all need to be reminded that the best managers are servants of the people.

For more free tips for the IT manager, check out the HP Learn & Use website.