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Who am I to tell them how to make decisions? This anxiety-induced thought played like a broken record in my head as my first leadership training event approached in my new role as a training director. Talking in front of 40 leaders, most of whom were older than my ripe old age of 30 at the time felt like the perfect opportunity for them to see right through my lack of expertise and expose me as the fraud I was. Years ago, while working at a regional bank, I was promoted from trainer to leading a training team in another department. My prior roles as a sales trainer and human resources consultant allowed me to build a company-wide reputation as an expert on complicated sales processes and navigating employee benefits and hiring processes. This new role pushed me out of the payment division into the retail branch banking side. In other words, it was way out of my comfort zone. And at this first training event, I could no longer rely on my expertise to help me feel safe, trusted, or relevant. The Sky Parted That first event was tough. Afterward, I admitted to my manager, Who am I to tell them what to do? Ive been a manager for about five minutes and most of these leaders have been managers for 15 years. The question she posed to me next transformed my relationship with expertise for a lifetime. She asked, What if your job is not to be the expert up there, but to facilitate the expertise in the room? It was like the sky parted and the sun emerged. Of course that was the answer. Because I had been promoted throughout my career due to my level of expertise, it was natural for me to assume that in my new role, expertise was the only way I could add value. Instead of being the expert, I had to rebrand myself as a leader who could facilitate, promote, and grow the expertise around her, whether it be in a training room, on my team, or even now leading my own coaching and speaking practice. Managers looking to break their identity as the expert and the go-to can benefit from undertaking a similar rebranding campaign. People will likely continue to reach out to you, hoping for you to provide quick answers or jump in to help them fix an issue the way you used to. But its critical that you teach others how to see and use you in a new way so that you can advance to more strategic levels of leadership. This is easier said than done. After all, people have grown accustomed to your old ways of working. Here are some common situations that can keep your stuck in the expert identity trap and some strategies to consider to avoid it. THE GUILT TRAP Moving into a new leadership role can sometimes unsettle colleagues accustomed to our old ways of working. They may (intentionally or not) attempt to elicit guilt, saying things like, You used to do this for me or People are going to be upset about this change. While these concerns may be valid, your role is to redirect any resistance toward productive outcomes. A helpful response might be, Thats true, and moving forward, my focus is on working on this strategic project development for my team. Here are some other questions you can ask to redirect their energy: I know I used to handle this issue. How can I help you get the resources you need to move forward? I could give you the answer and I would also love to help you self-source for future needs. Where have you looked so far? I understand that people may be upset that Im not involved any longer. What ideas do you have to help support them moving forward? THE HABIT TRAP As I rose to new levels of leadership in my corporate roles, if I continued saying yes to too many requests to do the work myself, people would continue to expect this of me. As a result, I would have been too busy delivering training without enough time to plan for, coach, and develop my direct reports. It would also mean my team loses out on valuable development opportunities and meaningful work. In every conversation, you have the opportunity to set the tone for your leadership, for the team, and for yourself. This includes expressing your expectations and having clear boundary conversations to redistribute and delegate work that is no longer yours. This might sound like: Jane handles this project now. Id be happy to coordinate an introduction and handoff. Matt will be leading this initiative from now on. Id be happy to schedule time for us to connect and coordinate transitions. THE COMFORT TRAP When you are promoted, comfort can get the best of your leaders if they continue assigning the same tasks as they did before the promotion. Because they value your speed and competence, this can hinder your growth in your new role. To avoid this, proactive communication is key. In my experience making this shift, I proactively communicated with my leader by clearly defining which projects Id handle personally and which Id delegate. I also encouraged my leader to reset expectations with her peers, making it clear my team would take on more project work as I transitioned into higher-level responsibilities. Aligning with leadership across the organization ensures that both you and your team are positioned to grow into new opportunities. This might sound like: Id like my team to take on this project moving forward, so I can uplevel. How should we best communicate this to your peer group? Instead of me, my team will be leading these events. How should we best inform your peers so they know to go to Susie instead of me? THE FREE TIME TRAP You have excused yourself from meetings you dont need to be a part of and successfully delegated work. Now what? The mindset shift from respond and react to think and plan is challenging. One of my clients said it best: Im staring at a blank Word document that is supposed to be our annual strategic plan and I dont know where to begin. This space can feel disorienting and lead to the question, If Im not doing the visible work, then how am I adding value? The key is to turn non-doing into an opportunity for growth and clarity. Focus on creating value by developing a new expertise setting strategic goals and coaching your team to achieve them. Try reflecting on some basic questions like: What did our team accomplish in the last month? Quarter? Year? What opportunities exist in our organization or market? What threats may hinder our progress or ability to succeed? Do I have the talent on my team to accomplish our future goals and objectives? What does good coaching, development, or support look like to achieve our goals? What key relationships do I need to repair, retain, or cultivate to ensure we reach our teams goals? Breaking free from the expert trap requires you to redefine your value as a leader. The real measure of leadership is not in having all the answers but in cultivating the conditions for others to grow, contribute, and step into their own expertise. As you navigate this transformation, ask yourself: What legacy do I want to leave? Do I want to be the person who always had the answers or the leader who empowered others to find their own?
Category:
E-Commerce
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Regular readers of Modern CEO know I often cite advice and anecdotes from Bill George, the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic and executive fellow at Harvard Business School. I share his words in part because of the depth of his experience and his extensive body of work, including True North, Authentic Leadership, and 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis. Still, I began to wonder if I had become overly reliant on his insights and set out to find other leadership experts. And who better to ask than George himself? What follows are edited excerpts of a wide-ranging conversation on the next Bill George, the difference between management and leadership, andbecause I couldnt help myselfGeorges advice for leading organizations in these supremely chaotic times. Modern CEO: Whos the next Bill George, if there is such a thing? Bill George: No. 1 would be Hubert Joly, the former CEO of Best Buy. Hes doing an amazing job at Harvard Business School, running CEO programs there, and wrote a book, The Heart of Business. And hes got a major research study, which Im sure will result in a [new] book, on frontline workers. Hes doing really good work and has a keen understanding of business purpose, values, and how one leads in this very chaotic period we are in. Within the business community, the best CEO in the world today is probably Satya Nadella at Microsoft. Others I would mention are Mary Barra [of GM], Doug McMillon of Walmart, and Dave Ricks at [Eli] Lilly. There are a lot of great CEOs out there right nowbut I dont know if any of them are going to write about it. Most academics prefer to write about management rather than leadership, and I think thats a terrible mistake. Many of the management techniques we have talked about over the last 30 to 50 years are woefully outdated. Theres no such thing as a 10-year strategic plan anymore. You can do one, but its meaningless because the worlds changing so rapidly. MC: Can one teach leadership without having been a leader? BG: Thats a really good question. [Former Harvard Business School Dean] Nitin Nohria is a brilliant teacher of leadership. I actually do think you need practice in leading. MC: We cant do a 10-year strategic plan anymore, but is there enduring advice on how to manage in chaos? BG: Leadership is much more difficult today than it was when I was a CEO or even 10 years ago. Why? Because the external world is changing so rapidly. One has to be very adaptive. Not all leaders are trained to deal with this worldtheyre trained to run businesses, to gain market share, to innovate with new products, to come up with creative, new marketing plans to make money, to manage the finances skillfully, to create more cash to please the stock market. Those are all the traditions. But today most of the issues one faces have to do with external factors. The great leaders have to be very skilled in how they deal with external events. We had 9/11, the meltdown of the banks in 2008, COVID, which affected every single human being on the planet in one way or another, and now the chaos thats taking place in trade and other things as a result of leadership in the United States. You have to be adaptive; you have to be flexible. But beyond that, I think there has to be a grounding, and that is your purpose or your mission and your values. And if youre not grounded in that as a company, youre going to be in [trouble]. A good example is Meta. Mark Zuckerberg is all over the map, and hes not going to fare well in this environment. Hes a brilliant guy, created the whole field of social media, but hes not going to do well in this because he is not well grounded. One has to lead with clarity about purpose and clarity about values. And that means you have to be clear in your own values. MC: Theres no shortage of people offering leadership advice on LinkedIn and TikTok. Is there information overload? BG: I think a lot of those writers are looking for an edge. A lot of the academics are thinking, How can I do something different? MC: How are you advising CEOs to manage through uncertainty at this moment? BG: First, be out there talking to your people all the time about your purpose and values. [Say,] Were not deviating from that as a company. Second, keep your head down and run the business really well. Dont deviate from what your business’s basic core strategy is. Three, if youre a global company, you have to be global. I actually think we will continue to be a global world, but [tariffs are] causing CEOs to really have to reset the bar. Who is the next top leadership guru? Which next-gen CEOs and leadership authorities should Modern CEO know? Send your recommendations to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Im eager to expand my network of experts. Read more: CEO wisdom Mass Mutuals CEO on the No. 1 leadership trait What SAIC CEO Toni Townes-Whitley learned from Satya Nadella Steve Ballmer has cracked the code on CEO second acts
Category:
E-Commerce
For some, Microsoft Teams is a necessary evil: the modern day equivalent of an ever-ringing desk phone. But the fact is that in many organizations, its become an essential tool for communication and collaboration. And as long as youre using it, you might as well transform your Microsoft Teams experience from simply functional to truly powerful. Here are some quick tricks you should be using to get the most out of Microsoft Teams. Slash your way around the interface Slash commands save you time by providing quick access to frequently used features. Simply type a forward slash (/) in the search box at the top of the screen and a list of available commands will appear. Here are a few helpful ones to keep at the ready: /chat: Initiate a chat with someone. /away: Set your status to “Away. /dnd: Activate “Do Not Disturb” mode to silence notifications. /call [Name]: Instantly initiate a call with a specific contact. Use keyboard shortcuts to cut down on clicks The time you spend mastering keyboard shortcuts in Teams will pay off in spades down the road. Better yet, many shortcuts are universal across applications. Here are a few key Teams shortcuts that work in Windows: Ctrl + Shift + I: Mark the message youre sending as important. Ctrl + O: Open your current conversation in a new window. Ctrl + E: Go to Search. Ctrl + N: Start a new chat. Mac users: Substitute “Ctrl” with the Command key. To find a full list of shortcuts, click the three-dot menu in the upper-right corner next to your profile photo and select the Keyboard shortcuts item. Save messages for future reference Teams had a handy “Save” feature that allowed you to bookmark messages. Then it became the Bookmark feature, which allowed you toyou guessed itbookmark messages. Now its gone for some reason. But! Theres a workaround of sorts. If you forward messages to yourself, it creates a personal repository of notes that you can reference whenever you like. If you find a message youd like to save, hover over it and when the three-dot menu pops up, use the forward feature to send it to yourself. To access your saved messages, find yourself in the Recent section of the Chat pane. Better yet, hover over your chat with yourself, click the three-dot menu, and select Pin to stick yourself to the tippy top of the Chat section for good. Schedule messages to send later Need to send a message outside of work hours, but don’t want to disturb your colleagues? Sandbagging and want to make it look like youre burning the midnight oil? Teams allows you to schedule messages to be sent at a later date and time. Note that this feature works only for new posts you create in Teams channelsnot in chats and not in replies to others posts. To schedule a message, craft your post, click the plus icon in the lower-left corner, and choose the Schedule message option. Your post will stay in place, but will now have a delivery message at the top. Click it and youll be able to reschedule it or cancel it.
Category:
E-Commerce
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