10 Traits of a Successful Systems Administrator

I was recently asked by my students of the Institute of Advanced Technology how one can become a good Systems Administrator. I answered with the normal story of my life and moved on. However, it got me thinking about what has actually led me to where I am. A colleague of mine had recently mentioned how people love top x lists and best x lists so I sat down and came up with my list of top 10 traits of a Systems Administrator.

0. Be pas­sion­ate and Never Stop Learn­ing

This I con­sider to be one of the most impor­tant traits of a suc­cess­ful Sys­tems Admin­is­tra­tor (or any­one for that mat­ter). Be pas­sion­ate about what you do. When you love your work its not hard to get out of bed in the morn­ing, its not hard to stay up writ­ing until 2:56am. Its not hard to con­stantly be on top of emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies. Just because they are new and should not be imple­mented does not mean you should not fol­low the progress. Work can begin now on a project that may not come to fruition for years, but when the time comes you will be famil­iar and will not have to spend months get­ting a basic under­stand­ing of a sys­tem only to deploy and have no idea how to deal with the inevitable fail­ure of a sys­tem. Read, Lis­ten, Watch, Talk to peo­ple who know more than you.

1. Be Lazy

Thats right, “Be Lazy”. Good sysad­mins are lazy sysad­mins. They want to sit and not be both­ered by fires. Good sysad­mins go to great lengths to be lazy. They write scripts to auto­mate their jobs in the never end­ing quest of automat­ing them­selves out of a job.

2. Work Hard

Have a great work ethic. Be there when the job needs done. Spend the extra time to get things work­ing as best you can. In the long run it will help you with the next trait on my list.

3. Be dis­crete

You are entrusted with sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion. As a sys admin you may have access to every­thing from pay­roll to, hir­ing and fir­ing, to pass­words, and even other gen­eral per­sonal and com­pany data that needs to remain pri­vate. Do not break this trust. As Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great respon­si­bil­ity.“

4. Share infor­ma­tion

Shar­ing infor­ma­tion is impor­tant. It allows every­one to be on the same page. If it is not com­pany secret (like the fact that you have slave pid­gin labor) or your root pass­word then share it. Share it with your co-workers, share it with the com­mu­nity. Good infor­ma­tion is hard to find, help some­one get home before 2am and post how to rebuild a soft­ware raid.

5. Be cor­dial

Be kind to your users. They are the rea­son you have a job, can afford to drive to work (or own the fancy bicy­cle to save the trees). Yes that means don’t imme­di­ately say NO when a user asks if they can have a sticky note on their screen with their pass­word on it. Explain why it’s not a good idea, offer to help them come up with a secure AND mem­o­rable pass­word. Ask them if they under­stand why you have asked them to do some­thing a cer­tain way. This makes them feel happy about you being around, makes you (or should) feel happy about help­ing, and ulti­mately makes your job eas­ier in the long run. Your users will be more will­ing to accept change even if it scares them because they know your there to back them up and their past expe­ri­ence should prove that it’s for the best.

6. Be open minded

Just because you are an expert doesn’t mean you should not lis­ten to oth­ers. If an idea is brought up at least con­sider it (even if only momen­tar­ily).

7. Don’t be afraid to be right

You are an expert. You may not be THE expert but you are an expert. There are (or should be) valid rea­sons for your deci­sions. Don’t back down for pol­i­tics sake or because you (in the back of your mind are unsure).

8. Give credit where credit is due

If a col­league solved one of your prob­lems, or had a great idea be sure to give them the credit. This is ben­e­fi­cial in sev­eral ways. First, it makes that per­son feel good. Sec­ond, they will con­tinue to bring you solu­tions and ideas. Third, you won’t look like an ass for always try­ing to be “the man” (or woman as the case may be). Fourth, it will (or should) make you feel good to praise some­ones good idea after all you like your good ideas praised.

9. Don’t be afraid to be wrong

Learn­ing from your mis­takes is extremely impor­tant. No one can be per­fect, you can strive to be, but every­one makes mis­takes. Rec­og­nize your mis­takes and fig­ure out how to not repeat them.