Even when you’re confident in your ability to manage and lead teams, managing people who are older and / or more technically expert than you can have its challenges.
It might feel daunting but it’s pretty much guaranteed to happen if you’re ambitious because the more senior you are, the less likely it is you’ll have done every different role that reports into you. So how do you handle it without falling into the d*ckhead trap?
#1 Own your mindset
For most people, the biggest hurdle they face in managing people not that the people they manage are challenging, it’s that they worry that managing them is going to feel that way
There can be a tendency to feel that you should have all the knowledge, that you should be able to do every individual person's job on your team as well, or better than they can. And that if you can't, that you are not good enough to be their manager.
If that’s what you’re feeling, I would ask you to really consider your mindset around what the role is of being a manager and being a leader. Because your job is not to know everything that everybody else knows. (Otherwise, why are they needed in the first place?)
Your job is to make sure that your team have everything that they need. It's to deliver on your own objectives, but to do that with and through other people.
If you feel like you need to be able to do everybody else's job, then it can actually really hamper the performance of your team. Why? Because you’re focusing on what you lack, not what other members of your team bring. You might subconsciously hold back from recruiting or giving opportunities to people who are more skilled than you are, or who know more than you do. In other words, exactly the kind of people who could be a brilliant addition and help your team to fly
I’m assuming if you’re reading this then you’re a decent human who wants to be supportive of your team. I get that you want to be able to pitch in if they are stuck. It feels all warm and fuzzy to be the one who helps someone else solve a problem, or gives them a genius idea they can bring to life. But this stuff is about you, not them
I spent a lot of my career managing and leading pretty sizeable teams of people who were way better than I was at the role that they were doing. Which was good, because my job wasn't to do their job. My job was to lead and manage and get the best out of them. THAT, I was good at
In my first senior management role, I was responsible for the whole suite of operations in a multi-channel retailer. I had retail, customer services, logistics and finding new sites all in my remit. One of the roles I knew inside out because that was the one I’d done and been promoted from. The others I knew varying amounts about from ‘I have a fair idea’ to ‘I have bugger all clue’
It would've been very easy for me to kind of let that wobble my confidence. But in reality, I was just really grateful to have people in those roles that did know what they were doing. And that mindset stood me in really good stead.
#2 Don’t pretend you know more than you do
If you allow yourself to feel threatened by the expertise your team have, then a natural follow on from that is a dangerous combo of your confidence being low whilst also feeling the pressure to make sure other people are confident in you
And one of the risks with that is you try and hide or cover up your perceived lack of expertise by pretending that you know more than you do. You might not admit that you don’t know what the hell they are on about when what they are saying is littered with technical words. Or you might join in as best you can and go down an internet rabbit hole later trying to bring yourself up to speed. Neither of which tends to help that much
Generally, it’s far better to just have a really straightforward, honest conversation. So if they're talking in technical language or jargon and you don't get it, admit that. Sometimes they might not realise they’re doing it. Other times they might be giving you detail that isn’t needed.
And sometimes that awareness that they are not talking in layman’s terms can unpick exactly why they might struggle to have the level of influence they need because they can’t express things in a way that make sense to less technical stakeholders
#3 Use a coaching style
Unsurprisingly given that I have ended up as a professional coach, this was something I leant into heavily when I was managing expert teams. My ideas and suggestions weren’t going to add value, but my coaching could provide challenge, open up new perspectives and stretch my team to get the very best out of them
People with a stack of experience under their belt don’t need as much direction as newer, less expert members of your team. You don’t need to teach your grandmother to suck eggs. And that can make for some great headspace where you help your experts with their approach to thinking through problems and potential solutions, then let them own their contribution unencumbered by your meddling
In the operations role I talked about earlier, my Head of Logistics managed to save £170,000 on his annual staffing budget. What I knew about warehousing and logistics at the time could have fit onto a postcard. (Still could, come to that)
There was no way I could have given ideas and suggestions for how to improve productivity so I didn’t try. What I did was ask the really basic, fundamental questions that he wouldn’t have known to ask himself. I wasn't trying to manage him as such, I was simply coaching him. Although that was one of my objectives, it didn’t feel like the pressure was on me to solve it, just to unlock the answers in him. And that felt good for both of us
So rather than going down the knowledge rabbit hole where you try and learn all the stuff they know, focus on learning how to be a great coach and watch your team fly
(A GREAT book that can help you do that is The Coaching Habit, by Michael Bungay-Stanier)
#4 Focus on Appreciation and Recognition
The irony for people who are experienced is that it’s not unusual for their expertise to be taken for granted. If you’ve got people on your team who are experts in their subject, you don’t necessarily know how much is involved in turning out the results and contribution they are delivering
Taking the time to give positive feedback, say thank you and show interest in how they are feeling and what else they want from their career can be incredibly simple but meaningful ways to set yourself apart as a manager
Their successes are your successes, so make sure you talk about them to other people within the business. Take the time to nominate them for awards if your business has a process for that. Put them forward for opportunities to work on cross functional projects or be a spokesperson in a focus group. Basically anything appropriate and authentic that is a vote of confidence in them
Think about it from your own perspective - you've had the headroom to operate without being micromanaged, you’ve been left to do your thing and you’ve had recognition for doing it well. What more do you want from your manager or leader?
For most of the clients that I work with, that's the style that they respond to. It’s the style they know gets the best out of them. But until they think about it consciously they don't necessarily automatically replicate it. So set yourself apart as a boss by being the one who does
If this article is helpful for you, then you might like The Practical Leadership Academy. It’s my online training portal and it’s there for new to role or newly promoted leaders who want to be the best leader and manager they can be