As managers, we often find ourselves in situations where our subordinates are better trained in a particular field than we are. After all, our role is to lead the team and achieve desired results, not to be an expert in everything. That’s why we build our teams with the most qualified individuals, which means with experts who are aware of their own knowledge. So, how do we enforce, delegate to, and manage teams that have more expert knowledge in their areas of responsibility than their supervisor, who is ultimately accountable for the entire outcome of their work?
The master-apprentice formula is no longer the standard
For the past dozen or so years, we’ve seen a generational shift where younger individuals taught older ones about technology and its operation. This trend is slowly passing, and perhaps we haven’t realized until now that it’s reflected in organizational management. Here, the classic master-apprentice formula is no longer the standard, and complex organizational systems require the employment of highly qualified specialists in specific areas. Management no longer possesses the same level of knowledge as experts, such as those in the logistics department or programmers working with advanced systems.
Peter Drucker wrote about this back in 1999, “(…) employees are no longer hired as subordinates providing predefined services or actions, but should rather be called knowledge workers, who often need to have more knowledge about their work than their supervisor”. Nowadays, competence is viewed through skills, as evidenced by the growing trend where recruiters, when selecting candidates, place greater emphasis on the experience and practical knowledge a candidate possesses, rather than on the titles of previously held positions.
Differences in Managing Experts vs. Non-Experts
The most crucial aspect of managing experts is that they don’t need, and indeed cannot, be managed prescriptively; the leader doesn’t give them step-by-step instructions. Instead, management involves focusing on the relationship and adopting a coaching style, which means asking questions that guide the individual to find solutions based on their own knowledge, not the supervisor’s. Similarly, if a turbine component on a ship stops working, the captain doesn’t need to know which part it is or how to replace it; they only need to know which person to delegate the repair task to.
It is the supervisor who asks the expert how they can solve a given problem most quickly and effectively, or, in the context of results, what methods will lead to increased profits in a chosen area. In how many different ways can we achieve this?
Experts provide narrowly specialized answers and solutions within their specific area. In this context, management means leaders must provide them with transparent and simple rules for collaboration, as well as a psychologically safe environment where they feel comfortable. Experts inherently dislike hierarchy, do not like to be controlled, and are reluctant to follow rules, so they may often try to circumvent or break them.
The Impact of Leadership Style on Achieving Organizational Goals
Leadership style has a huge impact on achieving an organization’s most important goals. Increasingly well-qualified knowledge workers, often experts, require management that is more focused on relationship management or the development of their own soft skills, such as emotional maturity. Managers and leaders who manage experts must also possess skills that enable them to quickly adapt to changing interpersonal, entrepreneurial, or socio-economic conditions.
When it comes to enforcing results with experts, it’s often a matter of self-navigation. That’s why their attitude of high emotional maturity and proactivity plays such a crucial role in managing them.
Furthermore, by stepping into the role of a ‘super-leader,’ managers have the opportunity to unleash employees’ intrinsic motivation, which in itself is a driving force for action.
Being a ‘super-leader’ therefore means guiding employees to lead themselves, fostering intrinsic motivation for work without the leader taking credit for its creation. This approach can be revolutionary in many organizations, yet such management ultimately inspires and motivates.
The leader’s leadership style, such as Ethical Leadership or, in the case of experts, management through coaching, has a significant impact on proactive behaviors. Hence, CEOs and senior managers, whose role in the organization is crucial, also need to re-evaluate their leadership style to more effectively manage teams that create innovative solutions. This is because it is evident that both knowledge management—specifically, knowledge workers and their proactive behaviors—should lead to increased organizational profitability, regardless of whether it’s a commercial corporation, a country, or a society (Doval, E.).
Results vs. Conflict Resolution
Another issue worth considering in leadership style is how to resolve conflicts within expert teams. In a classic strategy, it often seems that resolution occurs on an either-or basis, which directly leads to the rejection of one of the possibilities. Such a solution introduces a feeling of regret and loss and can paradoxically exacerbate the conflict.
Meanwhile, what would be beneficial to introduce in the event of conflict is to unite people in a ‘third solution,’ where experts are connected through their personal goals and values with the organization’s mission, vision, and values, in order to form alliances. Employees then stop defending their silos or areas and instead perceive the organization as a whole and the interdependencies between individual departments, thus acting from the perspective of benefit to the company, rather than solely from the perspective of their department or its results.
All of the above translates into a greater sense of purpose at work, as well as identification with and understanding of one’s role in the organization. Since the market has for some time been experiencing phenomena such as the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting, it’s worth understanding their deep underlying cause: a lack of perceived meaning in work. This is linked both to the difficulty in recognizing the importance of one’s role for the organization, but primarily to the lack of connection between an employee’s personal values and the organization’s values, and their personal goals with the organization’s goals. In other words, answers to the question: why should a given employee work for this organization? What personal goals should they use the company for? Adopting such a perspective builds long-term and genuine motivation to work in a given organization, because ultimately, everyone works for themselves and for the realization of their own values.
Author: Anna Modrzewska
