Justin Sherwood is IT Director at Franklin County, North Carolina, the second fastest-growing county in the state. He is six months into the role. He came from a decade as Deputy CIO/Assistant Director at the Town of Cary, where a mentor spent years putting him into situations he was not yet comfortable with, deliberately. When he walked into Franklin County, he was ready.

The county manager who hired him is himself a former CIO. The mandate was explicit: take the department's digital transformation to the next level. Sherwood arrived with five government organizations behind him and a clear picture of what it takes to move a public sector technology function forward. He also arrived, he says, understanding something that experience alone does not teach.

Before the Role

The preparation came in the form of uncomfortable assignments.

His mentor at Cary, Nicole Coughlin, put him in front of audiences he had no reason to be comfortable with. Public speaking. Panels. Presenting on behalf of the town rather than specifically about IT. At the time, he was not always receptive. "When she put me in those situations that made me uncomfortable at the time, I probably wasn't too keen and excited about it," he said. "But then when I got here, it was just a copy and paste. It was easily transferable."

By the time he arrived at Franklin County, those scenarios had already happened. The confidence that comes from having navigated them once was already built. Nicole, he said, "set me up perfectly."

The Weight That Comes With the Chair

The move from deputy to director changes less about the work than most people expect and more about accountability than most people are prepared for.

At Cary, Sherwood had been in the room for the decisions, helping to make them. The decisions themselves were not that different. What changed was where the weight landed when they were made. "She ultimately was the weight bearer on that," he said of his mentor. "And so now the weight kind of transfers to myself. I'm the one that gets the praise, but I also get the complaints."

The technical scope shifted as well. City government and county government are different institutions. At Cary, Sherwood had not worked directly with a courthouse, an emergency management function, a health department, or social services. Franklin County has all of them. Understanding each one, and how the county fits within the broader state system, was among the first things he had to absorb.

He inherited a department that had done what it needed to do: kept things running, kept the lights on. His job now is to build off that foundation. "I'm just going to try to build off of what they did and introduce some standardization, modernization, life cycle management." He is doing it with a team of eight, one open position, and twenty-plus years of institutional history to sift through.

Meeting People Where They Are

Franklin County runs primarily on desktops. Sherwood noticed this early and understood what it meant in practice: staff could not be mobile. They could not bring data to a meeting, move between buildings with information at hand, or collaborate quickly across departments when emergency management or public safety demanded it.

He started with a conversation. "Let's rethink the way we're doing things. You don't have to replace your current desktop with another desktop. Let's talk about getting a laptop, and then be a little bit more flexible."

He takes the same approach to security. The default posture he found was block first, ask questions later. He is not interested in opening everything. He is interested in having a different kind of conversation: what do you need, when do you need it, and how do we get you there.

He applies the same caution to innovation. Generative AI is a constant topic in government technology circles, and Franklin County is not immune to the pressure to move quickly. Sherwood is deliberate about sequencing. "Before we jump into the deep end with that, let's sit down and talk through it. From a government standpoint, start small, then we can build up."

The thread across all of it: understand where people are before trying to move them somewhere else.

Developing Others

When Sherwood arrived, he met one-on-one with every member of his staff. The question he asked each of them: what do you want to be when you grow up?

He uses the phrase deliberately. Some staff members are near the end of their careers and are exactly where they want to be. High performers with limited upward trajectory are still, in his framing, rock stars. He uses a nine-box model, plotting performance against potential, to think about where each person sits and what investment makes sense.

For those who want to move, the expectation is clear: "I can do a lot of this work, but you have to want to do it and you have to do some of the work yourself." Within his first six months, one employee had already been promoted into a role that better fit his skill set. Others took notice.

The Longest Lesson

Sherwood came up technical. The transition from technical contributor to manager required him to let go of both the work and the relationships that had defined him.

"I struggled to move from a peer level situation to a manager level and give up the technical piece. But those relationships were difficult to manage when now your peers are reporting to you."

Delegation took time to develop. Trusting that others could handle what he had always handled himself did not come naturally. Even at Cary, as he was helping newer managers navigate the same transition, he recognized what they were going through because he had been through it himself. "I think Nicole would tell you the same thing. It took me quite some time to figure out how to navigate through that."

His advice for anyone entering a new role, particularly a first stint at the top: listen more, and ask questions, including the ones you already know the answers to. "I like for people to say them out loud. So then it kind of resonates a little bit more."

He has been at Franklin County for six months. He says he would like to be a little further along. He also says it is a marathon.