Most of us began our career as individual contributors with our expertise in a particular field. Given time and experience, we become what we call an expert resource, where we are really good in our field of work.
We are most often either given the leadership opportunity by simply rising through the ranks, or that we are one of those emerging talent amongst the company population, who are all ear-marked to become influential leaders of the future.
The question is, when our time comes to lead a team, how do we transit?
#1 Be aware that you are not the expert anymore
Our employees might not be better than us in our specialization, but when they work as a team, they know a lot more than we do, alone. With our lack of confidence and trust in them, we will find it hard to earn their respect, and doing the work our way will only wear us out faster, harder.
At this level, we should avoid trying to be an all-rounder. Try shifting the focus to the resources and expertise our teams have. This will help us achieve more meaningful goals, instead of pretending that we know, or need to know everything.
#2 Drop the details you once need
Yes, we don’t need them anymore, at least not for leading a team. New people managers who come from a specialist track almost always overvalue their intelligence and capacity to work hard. In contrast, what they miss out is the importance of the ability to do less and think bigger.
Take an issue and think about how our strategies affect employees at least one or two levels below. This allows us to think deeper, yet broader into the effects of organizational behaviours, aka “the big picture”.
#3 Be the enabler, not the Doer
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so that they can tell us what to do," - Steve Jobs. Before leading a team, we are the expert doing all the work. However, as a leader, we are now the enablers. Our role is now to help our team of experts get their work done - help them, to help us.
The challenge of being an enabler is to leave and empower the team to do what they need to, but at the same time be able to identify when to intervene when trouble arises. This can be difficult if too much autonomy is given, resulting in developing ourselves into passive leaders, which can go disastrously out of control and redundant.
#4 Build up employee relationships
An expert who knows what to do and tells you the answers; an effective leader finds the answers collectively by knowing exactly who and what resources to gather. It is now all about the relationships we build with our employees, and ensuring that when the need arises for us to call upon their expertise, they will appear.
Building up relationships with our team members means knowing them very well. This will allow us to adopt and individualize approaches in handling different situations. To strengthen this aspect, we need to cultivate the rule of sufficient face time. Technological advancements now allow us to connect through virtual video meetings with cost free applications such as Skype and other mobile apps. Therefore, regional leaders with cross-border reporting should never excuse themselves for relying solely on text emails and calls for communication.
#5 Enhance your presence
Imagine yourself as an onion with your knowledge and skills as the outer layers. When you're finally required to peel them (recall that by now you are not the expert anymore), what you are left with is really your inner values, qualities and how you present yourself as a leader. Work on influencing others by fostering connections with them, enhance our confidence and stance while we speak at important meetings, enhance our presentation skills, and many more.
In essence, leadership is beyond expertise in any one area. It is an art, and a skill. Once we take the leap to lead, we need to realize that we no longer have to be the expert that we were. Leading the team with our areas expertise becoming less relevant may sound uneasy, but with adequate balance, personal mastery and the aspiration to bring out the best of others more than yourself, this moment can be the most amazing part of your career.
Seize every leadership moment, while its still yours, or to be.