Smart managers learn quickly to draw upon the expertise of team members to build team and group performance and support individual development. In other words, smart managers learn to let go of being the expert on every topic and develop new experts on their teams.
What Got You Here Won’t Cut It Moving Forward
For many first-time managers accustomed to serving as the expert in their roles as individual contributors, letting go of this part of their workplace persona is difficult. People who are highly competent at their jobs naturally associate their technical or specialized acumen with their success—it becomes part of their professional and personal identity. What they fail to recognize is that the rules of survival and success have changed—with less emphasis placed on their specialized knowledge and more placed on their ability to deliver business results through others. The failure to understand and adapt to this new reality creates a wide variety of problems for the manager and team members.
When the Manager Acts as the Expert, Stress Fractures Appear
The manager who insists on retaining the role of expert adds stress to her team in a number of ways. Some of the most common include:
Team members perceive their technical expertise is devalued by the manager’s insistence on supplying all of the answers or always having the final answer. Instead of building a team-like atmosphere, the manager as expert reinforces a hierarchical environment.Individuals grow resentful over time as they recognize their ideas and opinions don’t count. This resentment manifests either as aggressive behavior or, what the manager interprets as poor attitudes.Personal initiative fades as team members become accustomed to the manager supplying all of the answers. Overall performance suffers as the as the group’s working environment turns sour and as the manager increasingly becomes a bottleneck, with team members waiting for him to opine on every issue.
When New Managers Must Sink or Swim
The transition from individual contributor to manager is challenging. The burnout or churn rate of first-time managers is unacceptably high across many firms in large part because there is little advance training offered, and even less post-promotion coaching. Many managers are left to sink or swim with their new duties. When faced with a high degree of ambiguity about their new role, they naturally revert to what has worked for them historically: their ability to navigate tough problems by drawing upon their specialized knowledge. If you find yourself living through a similar scenario, here are six ideas to help smooth the transition from expert to manager without introducing the stress fractures described above.
Six Ideas to Help You Transition From Solo Expert to Effective Manager
The Bottom-Line
Success as a manager is less about your technical acumen and more about your ability to draw out the best in others. The expertise that served you so well in the past must now take a back seat to new skills focused on supporting and developing others. Start by reframing your professional mission and then concentrate on cultivating a new layer of skills that will support your growth as a manager and leader.
