The Story of Mark, our Expert-Leader

Mark* is a super-intelligent, exceptional performer. He’s highly valued at work for his knowledge, expertise and commitment. Mark is an actuary. He’s the go-to person for any advice on actuarial matters. People joke that they don’t always understand his answers, but they do know they will be the right ones.

Every organisation has at least one Mark. Our ‘Marks’ are known for their intelligence and specialist knowledge. They may be considered nerds or geeks and are often on the receiving end of jokes. Even though it can sometimes be difficult to relate to them, they’re recognised as expert advisors and valued as such.

Sound familiar?

The Expert-Leader

We know that as we get better at what we do, this is our pathway for getting promoted to higher levels of management. And, being a manager requires skills and qualities that have very little to do with our subject-matter expertise.

In particular, you need to get really good at leading people, emotional intelligence, dealing with conflict, setting a clear vision and strategy. All these relate more to personal mastery than subject-matter mastery. This is where our expert-leaders often come unstuck.

Personal Mastery

A study of American leaders in the 80’s showed that 2 of the 8 proposed leadership problems were a lack of self-knowledge and inattention to values and purpose. The remaining 6 problems related to seeing the interconnectedness of issues, understanding the wider concepts and other areas that do not relate to the leaders’ level of knowledge or expertise.

Things have changed a bit since. There is a much greater awareness of the need to develop leadership skills through personal mastery. Recent leadership trends show that organisations invest time and money to develop leaders.

Working on our ‘soft skills’ helps get the job done better and faster. These skills focus on personal mastery and managing people. This makes truly great leaders stand out and remembered long after they’ve moved on.

Mind the Gap

Interestingly, these qualities don’t often come naturally for our expert-leaders, specialists such as actuaries, accountants, lawyers, IT specialists and engineers to name a few.

There is a gap between how leaders perform in terms of what they do on a specialist level (which they know to do well) and how they lead (which they find more challenging). This is the doing-being gap.

Once you reach a certain level of leadership within an organisation, expertise is a given. It is much less of a job requirement than the ability to co-ordinate, engage, motivate, strategise and influence. Yet you don’t formally learn these skills at any stage of preparation for a leadership position.It’s something you’re expected to just pick up as you go along.

In fact, you get promoted because of your smarts, exceptional ability and performance and then you reach a level of leadership that you don’t exactly know how to operate in. Your smarts don’t help when you need to lead. Herein lies the paradox that ‘what got you here, won’t get you there.’

A Different Perspective

I’m writing this article from an interesting and rather unique perspective. I’m both an actuary and an executive coach specialising in developing leaders. This means I understand both worlds – expert and leader.

My career as an actuary enabled me to do something that was challenging and mathematical. I wanted to satisfy my curiosity around rigorous analyses of trends in facts and figures. As an actuary I experienced the doing-being gap first-hand, from my own managers. I knew I wanted a different experience of leadership. Today, I work with talented people in business, guiding and coaching them close the gap and become extraordinary leaders.

My passion for creating extraordinary leadership that builds people and business allows me to use all my skills. I use both the analytical thinking skills that I had learnt as an actuary and the people leadership skills I’ve learnt subsequently.

Being a coach allows me to open up new worlds for the experts I work with. Helping people close the gap between their being and doing to lead with impact, is an area that fills me with passion and purpose.

Being an actuary allows me to understand my clients and the context in which they work. It also gives me credibility in terms of their belief that coaching can’t be ‘soft’ if their coach is an actuary. By looking beyond the technical expert that my clients so closely identify with, they can expand their own definition of self and learn to lead.

Expert AND Leader

Many actuaries and other specialists want to learn to be better, more effective leaders. They know that results and career progression depend on their ability to lead with impact.

Leadership coaching allows talented experts to explore and learn the less tangible, yet essential, leadership competencies described in the paradox above. Through a process of challenging thinking and behaviour, questioning and self-awareness, leaders learn about who they are as they go about doing what they do. In this way the we bridge the paradox. In this way, an integrated version of leadership emerges by focusing on both expertise and leadership.

Useful Tip

If you’ve reached a level of expertise that has gotten you to a leadership position, ask yourself what is one thing you can begin developing as a leader.

If you’re not sure, get feedback from those around you. Ask them for one tip they would offer you that would make you a better leader.

Just like you would never stop reading and learning in your chosen area of expertise, don’t let your leadership lag behind by ignoring it.

Do something every day to practice and improve your leadership.

Final Words

Even though I still have to put up with ‘actuary’ jokes from time to time, it’s always good to take a step back and laugh at ourselves.

In conclusion, pay attention to your growth in both expertise and leadership.

Get feedback on what you’re doing well and what can be improved in your leadership.

Do something every day to become extraordinary.

To go from expert to leader you need to surround yourself with people who can challenge and support you. Get in touch with us for one-on-one leadership coaching & mentoring.

*not his real name