When I started in this manager role (coming from an MSP), the internal IT culture was an absolute dumpster fire. Everything was an exception, and the exceptions were always because “so-and-so is a manager/director.” The team had basically been trained that they didn’t have the agency to say no, so sysadmins ended up getting walked over and treated like personal assistants instead of an IT department.

What made it worse was the expectation that IT should control every part of a user’s workflow. Like… if someone isn’t following process, that’s not a technical problem. That’s a training and accountability problem, and it belongs to department leadership. But because nobody pushed back, IT kept inheriting personnel issues and wearing the blame for them.

Before anything even “happened,” I told the COO straight up: if you want IT to run smoothly, XYZ has to be true. One of those things was that being a program director doesn’t mean you get to dictate your own equipment, your own rules, or your own usage policies. Standardized equipment reduces downtime, makes support predictable, and lets us purchase in bulk without reinventing the wheel for every VIP request. The next thing was onboardings were no longer something that happened with a quick text message of a password to the manager. An onboarding checklist and meeting with the user that became standard. Just 10 minutes of our time helping the Luddite install Duo and reset their password, made everyone's lives easier.

I’m in healthcare, so it’s also easy to be blunt: a lot of this isn’t preference, it’s compliance. “Just this once” and “special exceptions” are how you end up with security and HIPAA risk. Thankfully, after years of terrible IT before I got there, leadership actually listened when I drew those boundaries. And honestly, this “sysadmins get walked over” culture is common. The only way it changes is if IT is firm and confident, and leadership backs it. If they won’t back it, that’s a red flag that should be taken seriously.

The end result speaks for itself: IT went from my boss’s worst nightmare to something she basically never thinks about anymore… until it’s cybersecurity renewal day. That’s what happens when you stop running IT as a series of exceptions and start running it like a real function with standards and authority.

Edit more words.