What is the greatest challenge that face the IT manager?

Well as far as my keen observation goes that we can't take a single point only to show the challenge of any IT Manager but also there are many factors which really may create challenges for an IT Manager.
Some of the factors i want to summarise now.1.Communication2.Leadership3.Division of Work3.Facing obstacle & removal4.Uncertainty Removal5.Project Management6.Administrative and Financial1.Communication: You need some substance in the communication, of course — you need to have something worthy of being communicated.
But substance isn’t enough — if you know what you’re doing and can’t properly communicate it to anyone else, then you’ll never be a good manager2.Leadership:Leadership is a specialized form of persuasion focused on getting other people to follow you in the direction you want to go.
It’s assumed that the leader will march into battle at the head of the army3.Facing Obstacle & Removal:Inevitably, problems will occur.
Your ability to solve them is critical to the ongoing success of your organization.
Part of your job is to remove the obstacles that are preventing your employees from doing their best.Not all problems can be solved.
When upper management complains about certain things that can’t be avoided (e.g., an unavoidable delay in a project deliverable), it’s your job to take the heat.
But what’s more important, it’s your job to absorb the heat to keep it from reaching your employees.
It’s the manager’s responsibility to meet objectives4.Uncertainty Removal:When higher management can’t give you consistent direction in a certain area, it’s up to you to shield your employees from the confusion, remove the apparent uncertainty, and lead your employees in a consistent direction until there’s a good reason to change that direction5.Project Management::You have to handle the whole project and its management and its not easy to tackle this all because there is a responsibility on you to get the project work done my team within the timeline.6.Administrative and Financial :Most of the managers have a budget, and you’ll have to be able to set the budget and then manage to it.
You’ll also have to deal with hiring, firing, rewarding good employee performance, dealing with unacceptable performance from some employees, and generally making sure that your employees have the environment and tools they need to do their work.
It’s ironic , because a lot of managers hate this part of the job the most.But if you’re good at budgeting, you’ll find it much easier to do the things you want to do.
And hiring and dealing with employees on a day-to-day basis is one of the key skills to give you the best, happiest and most productive employees.

out of my personal experience , the greatest challenge is : - Speaking the language of end users (Translating technical terms to common language) - Reducing the GAP between Management and IT Department

As an IT professional, greatest challenge is how to keep pace with technological advancements, both in hardware and software side.
This is the shortest description and can be discussed in detail for hours.
Also, on LinkedIn, one of the members answered it that I liked and is given below: - Lower Cost of Application delivery per user.
- Greater security .
- Higher end-user satisfaction leading to greater productivity.

Defining the most effective and price performance technologies to achieve the organization's goals and implementign those tools effectively.

Many keys challenges are facing IT managers nowaday main challenges are :1.
Creating a Scalable Growth Strategy - Time is never an ally for a technology department.
Bad timing can result in growth opportunity loss.
In order for IT professionals to seize growth opportunities, they face the challenge of staffing optimization.
It is often too expensive to scale to the staffing and training required for both maintaining service levels and supporting new growth initiatives.2.
Improving Customer Service - Forcing customers to wait for availability lowers customer satisfaction.
The availability of live, real-time support increases first call resolution, time to resolution averages, and other Key Performance Indicators by which IT departments are accountable for results.
Since customer satisfaction directly affects productivity, improvements in client service are imperative.3.
Meeting SLA Requirements - Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) are fundamental to effective service provision.
They provide the basis for managing the relationship between the service provider and the customer.4.
Efficient Use of Resources - An IT department’s engineering staff should focus on projects, not routine maintenance.
IT leaders are faced with the challenge of how best to balance their human capital, customer needs and relationships, and expertise to encourage business growth.5.
Proactive Customer Support - Break/Fix methods are reactive and technology issues can worsen without effectively determining the root cause.
Waiting until the technology breaks often makes the problem worse.
By actively monitoring technology and analyzing trends an organization can isolate problems before they become service impacting issues.
Regards,