Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

Photo courtesy of Scottishgames.net

I’m not sure if it is physically possible, but I feel like I have been in adrenalin or some kind of a rush the last few weeks. My mind is just racing with ideas and I just have not had the need to sleep. Some of my colleagues wonder how I am able to function with 2-3 hours of sleep a night and work all night. It’s hard to explain, but while I do “work” until early hours in the morning, it’s not really work, it’s just fun. Maybe I have some sort of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) of wanting to learn as much as I can, but with social media, one link leads to another and before I know it, I’ve spent all night learning some idea I just stumbled upon on twitter.

Work/life balance is a concept that comes up from to time within student affairs professionals and to me, this balance, for me personally, has nothing to do with the amount of time I spend “working” and with my personal life. For me, it’s more psychological/mental. I can spend all night “working” or have 60+ hour work week but when I find what I’m “working” on really enjoyable, then it’s not really work.

I consider myself very lucky and blessed that I have a job that I truly enjoy and I have a team I enjoy working with. I love learning and being presented with challenges, both of which my job offers me. Everyday is a learning experience and while I certainly do experience some momentary frustrations when challenges are presented to me, the thrill of being able to move projects going, get folks working together certainly more than make up for the frustrations.

Who knows what future holds for me but I’m just having a fun time right now and I am not taking this for granted.

Fear does not paralyze me but it does provide me with that extra motivation to take action, to spend more time learning,  to improve myself.

Job security is something I don’t believe in anymore given the volatility of the economy. I have this fear that I will be the first person to be laid off at my organization when the budget gets worse or when the university starts consolidating technology units.  I’m not the most technically adept one amongst my co-workers, I don’t hold advanced technical and/or management degrees. I’m at the level of middle management. These are all factors that make me feel uncomfortable. But what I’ve learned a long time ago is that there’s a few people that can outwork me. The only person I know who can is my father who worked three jobs or four jobs at a time in his lifetime.  I may not be the smartest but I will work, learn 20 hours a day if I have to, just to keep up.  At the end of the day, there’s no one that will look out for me but myself. I’ve learned from experience that talks reassuring me about my place in the organization are just talks. I’ve learned to trust only few individuals who will actually look out for me.

I have this fear that I will be left behind when it comes to technology. The speed at which consumer-led innovations like social media, mobile and cloud is quite fast and I don’t want to be left behind, especially in my position in the technology field. It is this fear that I learned to accept the inevitability of having to work in a world where I will not be able to keep up with the new gadgets, new ideas but instead of resisting it, I will just have to keep up as much as I can and maybe stay ahead of the curve if that’s even possible.

I’m actually a very positive person and I hope for the best, and I can make something out of any situation.  Fear does give me that extra kick from time to time to get me to the next level.

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I have a great boss who I have a lot of respect for and one I really work very well with. He has  a track record for getting things done, he is very supportive of his staff including me and he is a very hard worker.  We also have different communication and leadership styles. In general, I interpret his style as more direct and task oriented. My style is more relationship oriented and more participatory/facilitator.  I am not really quite sure why our styles are so different. It could be just  our personalities or maybe  because of our cultural backgrounds.

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