Musings on Expertise
Prompted by Amanda Goodall's "Credible: The Power of Expert Leaders"
The Warm Up
Okay all you courageous leaders, raise your hand if you consider yourself an expert in the core business of your organization?
Raise your hand if you believe that others in your organization, the people you lead, would consider you an expert in the core business of the organization?
Be honest, no one can see you.
Now, pretend I just asked that question at a conference session where you are surrounded by industry peers and expert staff?
How comfortable are you with your level of expertise?
The Prompt
Perhaps Amanda Goodall, in her book Credible: The Power of Expert Leaders (2023), overly generalizes and randomly pokes, but she does tell compelling stories to challenge our growing comfort with recruiting leaders and managers who are business generalists rather than industry experts.
In her stories these generalists excel in persuasive talk about metrics, efficiencies, priorities, and business strategy while lacking understanding of what the business, such as hospitals, schools, basketball, and being the Exchequer (U.K’s finance minister) is about. They do not have the mastery and credibility gained from formal education, practice, and moving up through the ranks of the organization or industry.
She also has plenty of stories of expert leaders who, because they know the intricacies of the business, take a long view of success, set a high bar for internal expertise and succession, and demonstrate a high quality of work for others to emulate. They establish a culture of expertise that includes middle managers and supervisors who personally know the work of their teams, set realistic goals, support internal development, and have credibility for having worked their way up through the organization or sector.
According to Goodall, it is the lack of expertise and credibility that is resulting in widespread mediocrity and a failure of leadership.
The Musings
Goodall has chosen stories that prove her point about the importance of expert leaders. Yet, we all know that leadership is bigger than core business expertise and that both experts and non-experts have had a role in leadership failure and the rise of mediocrity.
But …
Given the complexities of today’s challenges, are we perhaps in need of more experts in leadership roles?
To paraphrase Goodall, have we entered into such a downward spiral of the expert, that we no longer have the expertise to recognize the risk we are living in?
If Goodall’s idea of expert leaders has merit, I have some musings on what that means for leadership development.
Pro-active support of experts within organizations.
We need to talk less and do more with succession and leadership plans; learning and development budgets and resources; shared goals and accountability for internal leadership growth; and the role of HR folks so they have the time, skill, and capacity to move beyond compliance training, putting out fires, and ordering fruit for the staff room*.
Prioritizing psychological safety (yep, I’m on about that again).
The principles of building trust through action, accountability instead of blame, addressing issues, having open communication, taking calculated risks, and being curious are the cultivators of wise leadership. I bring psychological safety up frequently because 1) it is misunderstood; 2) it is often absent; and 3) it builds the abilities, resilience, and perseverance necessary for the world’s problems and opportunities - including the one’s at your workplace.
Developing a work culture of expertise.
A culture of valuing expertise in sense making and decision making, along with role clarity and appropriate levels of autonomy, leads to increased work satisfaction, increased individual investment in and loyalty to the success of the organization, and yes, increased productivity.
Working on our own leadership development.
Emotional intelligence through self-awareness, self-management, awareness of others, and the ability to lead and influence others gives us a strong foundation for being able to see our work and impact with honesty and wisdom. When we do this we are better able to act on a vision (something bigger than our own self-interest) with a clear sense of purpose and responsibility for our growth and to act on how we show up as our best selves for others, the organization, the community we serve, and even for a better world. In other words, we know why we are here, how we need to be here, and what we need to do next.
The Closing
Because I have never in my life quoted Plato, I am going to enjoy the pleasure of doing so here. Nope, I still haven’t actually read Plato, but it seems that Goodall has and she opens Chapter 4, “How Expert Leadership Works”, with the following.
A ship’s crew which does not understand that the art of navigation demands a knowledge of the stars will stigmatise a properly qualified pilot as a star-gazing idiot, and will prevent him from navigating.
Plato, Republic, Book VI
Thanks for musing with me,
Babs
p.s. You can find out more about me, my work in leadership development, and my whole-person approach to coaching at the Courageous Leaders Project.
* The Atkinson HR’s webinar, “Beyond Fruit in the Staff Room: A Strategic Approach to Wellbeing”, left me with the image of staff rooms overflowing with fruit while people struggle with their well-being in unhealthy work places.
Photo by Buddika Gunathilaka on Unsplash
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