Recently my Chairman recruited a non-it background senior manager as a head professional services. No doubt the person is good, efficient but in some specific situations he gets or rather puts the other person in a very embarrassing situation.
Once we were discussing about the modules within a product. When we started discussing external interfaces and dependancies of different modules, he immediately bursted out saying that pl don’t divert the subject. When we tried to emphasize that this is an integral part of development still he didn’t agree saying that’ let us don’t get away from the core subject, we will talk about dependancies as and when it required’ Incidently our CEO dropped in and after hearing, he asked to continue the discussion from all angles. Such incidences happened for couple of times in different situations.
Some times we hear from our friends also that how they got in awkward situation because of improper insistance of a senior manager, only because he is lagging in IT procedures or terminologies.
I think technical competence upto a certain level is definitely required at higher positions. Simply managerial ability will not be sufficient to carry out the task.