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The seven reasons below come from a reported expert framework, not a ranked or experimentally validated list of causes. They are prompts for diagnosing a particular role and workplace, not assumptions about every IT manager.
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1. They have not been prepared to manage
Technical excellence can earn someone a promotion without preparing them to lead people, coordinate work, or handle difficult conversations. As Thomas Phelps, CIO at Esri and chief strategist at Innovate@UCLA, puts it: “They’re not being readied for the role.”
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Leaders can make management a capability people prepare for, rather than a reward they are expected to learn on the fly. Useful steps include formal learning, coaching from the new manager’s own leader, mentoring, and temporary assignments with real management responsibilities before a permanent promotion. These measures offer opportunities to learn; they are not a guarantee of success.
2. They lack interpersonal and leadership skills
Managing an IT function requires more than making sound technical decisions. Managers must explain a direction, build agreement across teams, secure resources, give useful feedback, and guide people through pressure or change. A person may be technically capable yet find these parts of the job difficult.
Coaching and mentorship can help managers practice these skills against actual workplace situations. The CIO feature also names the Society for Information Management’s Rising Leaders Forums as a development route for IT professionals. The right option depends on the person’s needs and availability; participation alone does not establish that a manager will improve.
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There is no single management style that suits every IT position. One role may reward steady, methodical operation; another may demand rapid decisions and frequent change. A capable candidate whose strengths and work style do not match the job’s central demands may struggle even with sound technical judgment.
Before appointing someone, compare the role’s actual conditions with the candidate’s strengths and preferences. Consider the pace of change, the amount of cross-functional coordination, the team’s needs, and how much ambiguity the manager must handle. If the match is promising but incomplete, give the person time, relevant experience, training, and mentoring to grow into the role rather than treating the mismatch as proof that they cannot manage.
4. Expectations and measures are unclear
A manager cannot reliably meet a standard that has not been made clear. A useful role description explains the manager’s responsibilities, how those responsibilities support organizational goals, the capabilities needed, and how quality and performance will be assessed. Measures should reflect the work, rather than relying on vague labels such as “strong leadership” or “good delivery.”
Kevin Earnest, co-founder and president of Manageable, frames the issue this way: “What quality metrics will [the manager’s] manager use to determine if the person is meeting or exceeding or not meeting expectations?” His suggested management system emphasizes Define, Coach, and Recognize: define the standard, coach toward it, and recognize progress. Clear measures should help a manager understand both what matters and how their work will be judged.
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5. They want advancement but not the management work
Some technical professionals pursue management because it appears to be the next step in a career or offers a route to higher pay, even when their interests lie in technical work. A promotion can then move someone away from the work they value while placing people-management responsibilities on someone who does not want them.
One alternative is to make advancement possible along distinct technical, management, and project or initiative leadership paths. That gives people room to take on more responsibility without assuming that supervising a team is the only definition of career growth. Nyariana Maiko, CIO for the Port of Long Beach, said of this kind of design: “That really made sure people were in the right places.”
6. They cannot prioritize competing demands
IT managers often face work from several directions: operational responsibilities, organizational priorities, and additional initiatives. When leaders keep adding assignments without clarifying what should move down the list, managers may appear to underperform even when the underlying problem is an unmanageable or conflicting workload.
Senior leaders can help by making organizational direction explicit, protecting time for core responsibilities, and resetting priorities when plans change. Managers, in turn, should surface trade-offs when new work arrives: what can be delayed, reduced, or stopped to make room? A priority list that never changes when new obligations are added is not a workable plan.
7. They optimize technical delivery instead of business outcomes
A solution can be technically correct and still fail to solve the user’s problem. For example, closing a service-desk ticket because a laptop has been fixed does not establish that the person can access the application they need across their devices. The relevant outcome is whether the user can do the work—not simply whether IT completed a technical task.
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Connect performance measures to user experience and organizational goals as well as technical delivery. That may mean checking whether a service works for the person who needs it, whether a process is usable, or whether a system supports the intended business activity. The measures should fit the service and its purpose; the CIO feature does not prescribe a universal set of metrics.
How to diagnose the gap in a particular role
Because these seven explanations are a reported framework rather than a validated ranking, use them to investigate the specific situation. Start with observable expectations and evidence, then identify what support or role change could address the gap.
- Role fit: Do the position’s demands match the manager’s strengths, interests, and working style?
- Clarity: Are responsibilities, organizational purpose, and quality measures explicit?
- Preparation: Has the person received training, coaching, mentoring, or a chance to practice management responsibilities?
- Capacity: Are planned responsibilities realistic, and are trade-offs agreed when priorities shift?
- Outcomes: Do the measures show whether users and the organization are better served, not only whether technical work was completed?
CMI’s 2023 UK research found that 50% of workers who rated their manager ineffective planned to leave within 12 months, compared with 21% of those who rated their manager effective. That finding underscores the potential importance of management quality, but it is not an IT-specific estimate and does not establish that any one intervention will prevent turnover.
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