Ask yourself a question:

Thinking of the best experts you have ever worked with or led, what attributes set them apart?

Then a second:

Thinking of the worst or most difficult experts you have ever worked with or led, what attributes set them apart?

In our Leader of Experts program, we ask both those questions and consistently get similar responses to this.

Positive characteristics of great experts

• Very passionate about their field.

• Bring people on a journey with them.

• Generous with knowledge. Not condescending.

• Good listeners.

• Positive and inspiring (can do).

• Make everyone feel like they contribute.

• Genuinely interesting people.

• Those who have a quick and authoritative answer to any question, or conversely, those whose default is ‘what do you think?’

Negative characteristics of difficult experts

• Insecure, closed with knowledge. Competitive.

• Distrusting.

• Over-reactive and defensive.

• Inconsistent behaviour / approach / moods.

• Critical and negative mindset (can’t do).

• Dismissive of others’ work.

• High maintenance.

• My way or the highway.

The second list represents an expert who is “stuck” in what we call the Expert Trap. There’s a couple of reasons why:

• They’ve been the single Point of Failure for far too long. They may be mission-critical to a specific business process they’ve run for a long time. There’s no succession plan, so unless they quit they’ll be stuck doing that work forever. Unsurprisingly, experts in this situation get fed up and take it out on co-workers.

• They feel undervalued and under-recognized. Or they have plateaued in their career, despite excellent technical skills. Could they be offered a role with more responsibility, or wider impact? Probably not until they have a stronger grasp of strategy, commercials, executive sponsorship and relationship building.

• It’s not their fault, it’s “management”. This manifests as negative talk such as “people don’t understand the contribution I make” or “no-one in this company gets it”. But regardless of the competency of their management, the underlying issue is that they are not as effective or respected as they’d like.

How do engineers, scientists, software developers and actuaries get stuck?

There’s a number of reasons experts get stuck, but the most common is this.

As people managers become more senior, they are coached to develop the business skills needed at a senior level.

Technical specialists don’t get that support.

A surprising number of experts don’t have a career ladder, capability framework, or even regular appraisals – and even where they do, appraisals won’t be explicit that business skills are essential to career progression.

And so a technical subject matter expert can become very senior without a strong grasp of organizational strategy and commercials. They may not know how to leverage executive sponsorship, how to build highly functional stakeholder relationships, or how to coach and delegate.

How to win as a leader of experts

There are five things senior subject matter experts tell us that would make their work more satisfying. Each of these represent a “win” for your leadership if you can help.

• Experts want to reduce or eliminate their low-level work and operate at a more strategic, value-added level.

• Experts want to be more influential in their organization and beyond.

• Experts want to be involved, front and centre, in transforming their organization through innovation.

• Experts want to be involved in initiatives that can make a difference.

• And finally, experts want a better-defined career path that gives them greater ability to contribute beyond technical advice.

If a leader of teams of experts can build the capability of their experts to be able to achieve these aspirations, they will have a significant impact on overall team effectiveness, fulfilment, and productivity.

Helpfully, skills such as business acumen, collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and change leadership can all be taught.

All you need is a plan.

How to help your experts grow their business skills

Master Expert

The Master Expert book, written for the experts themselves, is a helpful tool for leaders of experts wanting to know how to develop their technical experts to master the business skills above.

The book is highly accessible, split into lots of separate chapters, so you can delve into the topics that you most want to help your expert develop in. You can see an contents index here: Mastering Expertship. The book is available on Amazon. For a small investment you can provide yourself and your expert a manual for doubling their influence and impact.

The Expertship Growth Guide

This publication lists 102 development actions experts can take to develop skills across their expertise. There are 20 ideas for building business skills quickly inside. This is a companion publications to Master Expert above. You can check it out here: The Expertship Growth Guide

Leader of Experts program

The Expertship Institute offers a short one-day program enabling leaders of expert teams to sharpen their leadership skills when it comes to leading highly technical subject matter experts. Check out the Leader of Experts program.

Or download the brochure below. We run regular virtual programs every quarter.

Sign up for coaching

The Expertship Institute has accredited a group of highly informed and experienced coaches to help the experts or their managers build effective growth plans for their experts. We operate globally. Complete the Contact Us form for further information and an introduction to our delivery partner in your region.