How To Lead When You Are NOT The Expert and Deliver Impressive Results
We are promoted into management positions because we are the expert. Then we get promoted again or manage projects where we are definitely NOT the expert. How to lead when you are not the expert and deliver impressive results needs another set of skills, a different mindset, and a new approach.
The good news is you and any manager will be able to learn exactly what is needed for success fairly quickly. You’ll no longer feel out of place, unsure of what you can add, an imposter or a fraud. You will stand out, with confidence, in any room full of experts through what you help others do and achieve, rather than what you know yourself.
How To Lead When You Are NOT The Expert & Deliver Impressive Results
- How to confidently find experts to trust
- Your most important responsibility
- What to focus on to earn trust and be credible
- 9 essential actions for Leading people who know more than you
In the essential actions section, I break down the tactics, activities and actions you should be focused on every single day so that you can lead your team of experts to deliver really impressive results and enjoy the journey too.
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The first action when leading when you are not the expert, is to confidently find experts to trust
When you are NOT the expert, working out who you can trust on your team to tell you exactly what is what is not always straight forward. Avoiding the experts who put themselves before the team or who might undermine you is just as important.
I have come across plenty of experts who talk a very good game, yet when it comes to the crunch, really struggle to deliver even half their promises. After getting burned a few times, you quickly develop approaches to weed these people out quickly.
4 approaches to help navigate these challenges with confidence are:
1 – Find Your Blind Spots
Make the time and ask for help to work out what your own blind spots are. For example, I have successfully delivered a lot of company-wide system implementation projects. I am not an IT expert so when there are technical issues with say system integrations, I get help quickly. Knowing your blind spots gives you the opportunity to organize ahead of time the people you need to cover your own blind spots.
2 – Lead With Questions
When you are not the expert, lead with questions. “I think we should XYZ” changes to “How do you think we should overcome problem ABC?” or “I have spotted 2 problems we need to mitigate” changes to “I am not the expert here. I have spotted 2 problems. What problems do you see that I have missed?”. Be humble. Ask questions to draw out your team member’s expertise. Make them feel good about educating you. I often play a little dumb, ask questions and see who tells gives me the full picture and who just tells me the good parts of it. Lead with questions.
3 – Show Me
When you are not the expert, use a show me not tell me approach. This is a tactic I use a lot generally and especially when I am not sure if I am being told the unvarnished truth. In the process you also learn very quickly who tells you honestly what is happening and who filters unhelpfully.
An example – a sales team member says they are on track to happily beat targets this month. I ask what gives them so much confidence. They explain the different aspects of their pipeline and the prospects they are chatting to. Then I say, I am really interested to see how you are getting such a great result so early in the month. Please can we go through the activity on the CRM system for your top 6 prospects? The person starts to look a little nervous and you know you definitely want to see the details.
Use a show me rather than tell me approach .
4 – Get Opinions From Experts
Use other experts that you already trust to figure out which experts are worth trusting and who not to. It can be pretty easy to ask another expert to join you on a call or in a meeting, and their input can save you hours of problems later.
In short make the time to find experts you can trust.
2 – clearly define the right problem that needs to be solved – your most important responsibility for leading when you are not the expert
Finding the right problem to solve is not as easy as many think. Keep asking why questions and you will absolutely be able to find the right problem.
Most of the obvious problems are symptom problems and are caused by not very obvious underlying problems. Solve symptom problems and the problems will keep coming back, wasting time and resources and leaving you feeling very frustrated. Solve the underlying problem and all the symptom problems disappear too.
When you are not the expert finding the underlying problem is that bit harder. When your team finds a problem, keep asking “Why is this problem happening?” For example, the team is on track to miss its sales target this month. Why are we missing our sales targets? We don’t have enough leads. Why don’t we have enough leads? The marketing adverts are not generating the usual number of leads. Why are the adverts not converting as well. Our best advertising manager left last month and has yet to be replaced. In this simple example, the underlying problem is really recruitment, not sales. Keep asking why until you find the underlying problem.
When have the underlying problem, be really clear in how you define the problem. The clearer the defined problem, the easier it will be to get the experts to create an effective solution for that problem, and the easier you will find measuring progress of creating and implementing that solution. Make your problem definition specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and with a timeframe to solve.
3 – focus on results to earn trust and be credible when leading when you are not the expert
You are not the expert so planning out the tasks and activities to do to get to the result should not be your job. Organising the experts and keeping them working on the defined problem in a co-ordinated and collaborative fashion is your responsibility.
The best way I have found to be hands on in the management areas and hands off in the areas that are not my expertise is to focus on results.
Agree with your team what the milestones and final goals are in terms of measurable results. Measure progress against those milestones and goals. When milestones are being achieved, stay hands off and give your experts space and autonomy. When milestones are in danger of being missed, jump in and work out why and what to do about it with the experts. Be hands on in organising, communicating, co-ordinating, etc … the management aspects.
Focus on results. You will get a lot more appreciation, trust and credibility as a non-expert when you focus on playing to each team members strengths and staying out of the way when it is not your strength.
9 essential actions for Leading people who know more than you
Focus your efforts on helping your experts spend as much time on solving the problem and implementing the solution as possible. Maximising the use of their expertise in as short a space of time is very valuable to everyone, and you will keep your experts a lot happier. The essential actions I think a leader of experts should focus on are:
- Getting the right experts into the team to solve the problems you face
- Know the strengths of your team and test the expertise of members so you know how best to use each person and who will serve the team the best. Build relationships with each person to achieve this.
- Keep the goals clear and at the front of everyone’s minds. Repeat, repeat, repeat until they are sick of hearing about.
- Spend more time listening and asking questions than speaking
- Organising and co-ordinating the activities of the team
- Keeping communication between team members high, including facilitating group problem solving and encourage lots of collaboration
- Work to remove any non-technical problems as quickly as possible – access to resources at the right time, keeping distractions away from the team, team members being pulled away etc
- Empower team members. Encourage and praise at lot. Give team members space and trust. Give them frameworks to work within rather than tasks and activities. Elevate them rather than constrict them, especially when work for the good of the team.
- Communicate achievements on an individual level and a team level to stakeholders and colleagues outside of the team. Give credit where it is due.
Help & Support
There is an awful lot you can do to help and support a team of experts be at their best when you are not the expert. You have the skills to a great job and earn their respect and appreciation. Do what they are not the experts on. Great teams perform so well because of the differences within the team not the similarities.
in summary
How to lead when you are not the expert is a different mindset, a different approach using the skills you already have as a manager. Use the tactics and approaches we have discussed, and you will do great and be an instrumental part of the team that delivers impressive results. Play to your strengths as a leader and let your experts play to their strengths. Everyone will be a lot happier, and the group will deliver much more impressive results.
As a reminder for how to lead when you are not the expert, we have covered:
- How to confidently find experts to trust
- Your most important responsibility
- What to focus on to earn trust and be credible
- 9 essential actions for Leading people who know more than you
Take these actions and you can lead any group of experts, even when you know very little.
If you have any questions on “How To Lead When You Are NOT The Expert & Deliver Impressive Results”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
[Click here for further reading on leading people that know more than you]
You get promoted into management and to start with you are likely still to be an expert. It takes a promotion or two and chances are you are less of an expert than your team members who do their job every day all day. You become an expert in getting the best from others.
If you manage projects, chances are you are not the expert in more than one area. Learning how to get the best from others when you are not the expert is another set of skills any manager can learn.
Make the time to learn these skills to make sure you DON’T put a ceiling on your career. I view managing others when you are not the expert is vital in senior management and upwards.
Jess
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