Transitioning from Technical Expert to Strategic Leader

Many employees start on the frontline becoming technical experts in their chosen field. As a technical expert, you are involved in the day-to-day gaining technical knowledge to complete work. In most organisations, technical experts who perform well will eventually be asked to lead a team to help deliver results through that team. The transition from a technical expert whose responsibility was for their work to be responsible for the work of a team can be a difficult one. Many problems contribute to the transition being difficult.

Lack of Leadership Skills

People get promoted into leadership roles because of technical or functional skills and expertise that enable them to perform well technically. The technical skills they have acquired do not translate into effective leadership. Often individuals find it difficult to inspire, coach, and build commitment to a shared vision and to strengthen ownership and accountability in their teams.

Lack of Training

Many companies often fall short in providing training and coaching to develop technical or functional experts into skilled leaders. Companies also do not communicate what effective leadership looks like in practice or provide structured opportunities to get better at it.

Letting Go of Technical or Specialist Expertise

In a leadership position, you will not have enough time to maintain and build on that knowledge or expertise you have gained. Although you will use that knowledge you have to understand issues and context, the role of the leader is to people manage and develop strategies.

Keeping Out of the Detail

Having done a particular job well to managing others who do that job; it will be very hard to allow them to do the work in their way. It becomes even more difficult when your performance is now dependent on the performance of your team, which you have less direct control over.

Dealing with Ambiguity

In technical roles, you have been taught to collect the facts, analyse data, and make logical decisions. At a leadership level, ambiguity increases as you chart a course through uncertainty.

Stepping into a leadership position should not be underestimated. New leaders need to be prepared and supported before, during, and after their appointment. To give the best chance of success, companies should do the following:

Experienced Internal Mentor

To help the new leader establish themselves as a leader, an internal mentor can be assigned to help them understand the role. The mentor can help them navigate internal politics and provide advice on any new situations they encounter in their new role.

1-2-1 Sessions

The leader might be struggling in areas such as time management or having difficult conversations with their team. The leader’s manager will need to create a safe and open environment so that areas of development can be discussed. These sessions will need to happen regularly and frequently between the leader and their manager.

Teach Coaching Skills

The most precious skill that a leader should possess is coaching skills. In leadership positions, one of the main roles is to coach individuals to work efficiently and improve as an individual.

Clear Focus

To measure the success of a leader, goals will need to be set based on leadership performance. By having goals, leaders can shift their focus and help them experience early success as a leader.

Clear Leadership Framework

Having a clear leadership framework in place for an organisation will help leaders understand what is expected of them and what a good performance as a leader looks like within the company.