When brilliant isn’t enough. Making the leap from expert to leader

Are the very skills that make you indispensable today quietly holding you back from the leadership roles you want tomorrow?

I recall many years ago going into a meeting with a leading global technology services firm. The small conference room was filled with around a dozen senior managers and other various experts in their field. Here to ‘do battle’ and convince them that my organisation had the answer to whatever problem they had (I can’t recall precisely what it was now) were just myself and my erstwhile technical pre-sales colleague.

The meeting went well and they subsequently moved forward with our tech at the heart of whatever project they were working on but that’s not what I remember the most about that meeting. I recall, as the two of us left knowing that we’d pretty much smashed it, my pre-sales guy commenting that he couldn’t do what I did. It made me laugh!

The reason it made me laugh ironically though is because this guy was (is) freakin’ brilliant and it was ninety per-cent him and only ten per-cent me that was behind us wowing this particular audience. I recall at the time thinking “thank fuck you can’t do what I do” because if he and his ilk could I’d never work again!

Now this particular guy (sadly most in roles like this were guys back then but it is slowly improving) is the exception to the rule I’m about to make as he did go on and grow massively in his career but, looking back, I can recall dozens of fabulously talented pre-sales engineers who should have seen stellar growth in their careers but never really quite made the jump.

Why might that be?

I’ve reflected on that since and I realise now that very behaviours that make someone indispensable as an expert often make them invisible as a future leader. These otherwise brilliant and talented subject matter experts were simply ‘over-indexed’ on the wrong kind of value for the next level.

They didn’t lack confidence, presence or people skills. They weren’t too introverted or poor at stakeholder management and certainly didn’t lack credibility.

The issue was subtler and far more common. They were amazing at creating enormous value at the level they operated at but that value was no longer the kind that gets recognised, rewarded or scaled at the next level up.

I suppose the uncomfortable truth for these highly capable experts is to learn how to move from going ‘deeper’ - more detail, better answers, smarter solutions – to ‘higher’. What does that mean?

Think about it from the organisation’s perspective. The question quietly changes from “How good is this person at what they do?” to “What happens when this person is in the room?” where the answer also changes from “Problems get solved brilliantly” to “Decisions move forward.” It’s a shift from remaining invaluable but often at arm’s length from leadership to being trusted with bigger scope.

So, what is it that senior leadership is looking for in these individuals. They’re not primarily listening for the best answer, the most complete analysis, the smartest solution (although all of that matters of course) they’re listening for judgement, prioritisation, direction and confidence in the face of uncertainty. Experts who continue to lead with detail often assume their value will be recognised automatically. But leadership roles are not awarded for brilliance alone, they are awarded for making it easier for others to decide. 

The transition is hard to do alone though. It’s precisely where many capable people get stuck, not through lack of insight, but because their identity is so intrinsically tied to expertise. Their reputation has been built on being right and their confidence comes from certainty, not ambiguity. Letting go of that can feel like professional self-sabotage. 

And, in my experience, the organisation rarely helps, because It still benefits enormously from their depth and seldom explains why the rules have changed simply assuming smart and competent folks will ‘figure it out’. Sadly, many don’t, not because they can’t, but because no one is reflecting the shift back to them clearly enough.

This is the moment where coaching is at its most powerful - not as encouragement, but as reorientation.

A good career and leadership coach helps expert to identify where they are still being rewarded for depth and where it is now limiting them, helping them to translate that expertise into judgement, narrative, and influence.

Perhaps most importantly, coaching provides a neutral space to ask the questions few organisations ever ask explicitly like:

• What level am I really operating at?

• What value am I optimising for - and is it the right one now?

• What do I need to let go of to be trusted with more?

This isn’t about fixing a deficiency. It’s about evolving a successful identity.

The irony in all of this of course is that the experts most at risk of stalling are often the most capable. Their strengths keep them indispensable - but in the wrong place. Unless they consciously shift from being the one with the answers to being the one who moves decisions forward they remain respected, relied upon and quietly overlooked when bigger roles are discussed.

If your career suddenly depended on what happens when you’re in the room not the brilliance you bring to every problem what would you need to change tomorrow? Leadership isn’t about having the answers. It’s about moving decisions forward - even when you don’t have them all.