In a continuing effort to map the leadership landscape, the IT Leadership Academy recently asked 300-plus first-level IT executives (those who report to the CIO), second-level executives (who report to the first level) and third-level executives the following questions:

1. What percentage of your IT career would you say you were well led?

2. How do you spend your time? If you could change where you spend your time, what would you spend more time on? Less time on?

On the first question, we were so surprised with the responses that we double-checked to make sure we were listening correctly. But it's true: 20 percent said they were never well led, 5 percent said they were well led for more than half of their career, 10 percent said they were well led about a third of their career and 65 percent said they were well led less than 20 percent of their career.

Corroborating the responses to the first question is what I consider a mind-blowing statistic derived from the second question: 75 percent of the first-level executives said they wanted to spend less time with their bosses. A significant percentage wanted to spend a lot less time, with some going to the extreme of wanting to spend no time at all, with the CIO. Some context has to be considered: Just about everyone surveyed wanted to spend more time with customers, whether that meant line-of-business executives or real cash-money customers. Assuming that people were rational in their responses -- that is, they wanted to spend more time on higher-value activities -- the question becomes, Why don't IT workers find time spent with their bosses a higher-value activity?