Transforming Coders To Leaders Is IT Industry's Biggest Challenge

The Indian IT industry is exploring ways to tackle the dearth of leadership pipeline in their organisations as most of the coders (technical staff) are neither equipped with the right skill sets nor mentored to take up leadership roles, experts said at a panel discussion organised by Mettl, a talent measurement company.

"Shaping leaders from coders is easily identified as one of the biggest challenges in the information technology sector," said Ketan Kapoor, co-founder and CEO of Mettl.

Organisations should provide employees with a "safety net" where they are encouraged to push their boundaries and work beyond their routine but with the right support system from their managers and the organisation, Vibha Shukla, Director & Head-HR, SAP India said. "If an organisation doesn't support the individual, he or she will not take the necessary risks."

Similarly, Pramod Sadarjoshi, senior director- HCM at Oracle India believes that part of the reason for the shortage of a leadership pipeline is because many organisations look for "ready leaders" and therefore have no strategy for mentoring potential leaders. He says that the Oracle University is a platform that has successfully helped in grooming several leaders.

Some of the typical challenges that inhibit growth of leaders in organisations, according to the panel, are inability of identifying the leadership gene at the hiring stage, a coder's manager not letting him/her showcase skills at the business level, a risk averse environment, and improper compensation benchmarking.

The panel unanimously agreed that in order to build a strong leadership pipeline, it is imperative for organisations to identify potential leaders at an early stage and start seeing leadership training as an investment versus cost.