Beware your strengths

Jul, 2024

Not a joke – something one of my coaching clients was reflecting on recently.

 

It’s one of life’s ironies that debut leaders are typically promoted due to their technical expertise, yet their success as a leader requires different skills.

 

The early days as a debut leader can be an anxious time. Faced with the dawning realisation that your new responsibilities are nebulous, that you have not yet developed all the skills required to thrive in your new role and that your hard-won technical expertise (previously such a source of pride and plaudits) is now a given or even irrelevant, panic can set in. And that’s when the trap opens up in front of you, enticing you to step back into your comfort zone and flourish your technical prowess.

 

But beware. Whoever is performing the technical role at which you previously excelled won’t thank you for micro-managing their work or sucking out all the oxygen in the room. Even if your technical capability outstrips theirs, making them feel inadequate and thwarted may destroy your relationship with them and clock up your first leadership failure.

 

In professional services, the temptation to lean into your technical expertise is particularly compelling. Typically, you’re expected to continue delivering client service, while also leading. Arguably this duality encourages the myth that leadership requires little skill or focus and can easily be managed “side of desk”. Given this implicit messaging, professional services firms should not be surprised when some debut leaders focus on their technical delivery to the exclusion of their leadership role. Step forward the “badge wearer” leader who hopes that by role modelling stellar client delivery, their team will simply mimic them and that business strategy, team dynamics and team performance will take care of themselves without any further input. Of course, over time this can result in the erosion of the business’s culture and competitive position and the disengagement of its people. In a mature business operating in a benign or buoyant market, those consequences may not become evident for some time – which only fuels the debut leader’s temptation to ignore them.

 

Of course, those debut leaders who are sufficiently aware to recognise the temptation to focus too much on their technical skills and its possible consequences are already demonstrating their leadership potential. Similarly, their acknowledgment of their discomfort in their new leadership role and their focus on developing the skills that will enable them to become more comfortable, are good indicators of the resilience and growth focus that will undoubtedly help them to succeed as leaders. They might draw strength from all that in those uncomfortable early days in their new leadership role.