An Expert's path to leadership
People often assume that if we have mastered a craft, that expertise is largely sufficient to lead a team of people to achieve something. However, the ladder to leadership has many steps. Below is one flavour of the steps to leadership once someone has achieved mastery of a craft.
- Asking the team to do something, but at the first sign of trouble jumping in and doing it ourselves.
- Showing how others to do something, exactly how we’d do it.
- Showing others the outline and giving them freedom to do it their way.
- Letting others do it end to end and stepping in to make sure they are not making mistakes.
- Letting others do it fully and realising we should have checked it closely.
- Letting others do it, anticipate mistakes and provide guardrails.
- Letting others do it, providing them means to learn and protect them from consequences.
- All of #6, giving them credit and celebrate their achievement and learning.
At each step, we solve for different reasons and learns different aspects of leadership: 1. Solving for our reputation/ego by doing something ‘right’ - not yet a leader, still a solo contributor. 2. Solving for our lack of trust in team by ‘telling’ them what to do - not yet a leader, but a manager of execution. 3. Learning to trust and mentor - early stages of being a leader. 4. Trust blindly - wanting to be the ideal leader. 5. Trust but verify - showing empathy and care for the team’s learning. 6. Learn that mistakes are a part of life and the world is not ending. Standing up for our team is investing in them for the long run. 7. Trust the team, earn their respect, be selfless and trust our abilities to lead people without having to ‘prove’ it.
Of course one can fake all of it and some do - however, it’s a matter of time before the circumstances become too much to bear and one’s true nature shows up. ‘Trust’ only have to be lost once. Some people get this ability so quickly that it might seem as if they are faking it. Others don’t enjoy not being ‘the expert’. Some more don’t want to share the limelight. A few could never get over the impostor syndrome even if they are a natural born leader.
There is nothing in the world that can tell whether we must become a leader or must enjoy being a leader. We need to fully understand our true nature, identify what drives us, look for gaps in our skill, character and behaviour, learn and improvise if we want to evolve - and rinse, repeat.
John Quincy Adams said “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
We can start with ourselves.