Why would it matter how I feel about myself when I am an subject matter expert (SME)?
I have encountered this question in most of the sessions discussing the leadership option and potential. I saw so many leaders struggling with this question in all the places where I worked. I asked myself this question for quite some time when I first started leading teams. That is why it is the first question which comes to mind to answer in this article.
Let me first describe what I consider a subject matter expert for the purpose of this article, moving further I’ll use the abbreviation SME. An SME is an individual who is an authority on a particular topic, an individual with proven high skills on a particular topic. The term applies to all domains as far as I can tell. Let’s take for example, an SME in the development of a software product. We have a few different types of SMEs in such a team but I’ll focus just on one type, the business analyst SME to make it more reliable. This individual usually works as part of a team of business analysts, he is the most experienced on the topic of the product, he is the individual the team goes to for clarifications on the topic, for questions and decisions. He is not necessarily the leader of the team, but sometimes he can be. This is how I define the SME.
The SMEs often consider a role progression to be that of a leader. Which makes perfect sense as they are already the goto person in the team for any matters on the particular topic. And then the struggle usually starts. Being an SME requires a set of skills and being a leader requires almost a different set of skills. Now, look around you and think of an SME on your area of work or focus. They are usually very interested in their topic, they are gathering information to add to their knowledge on the topic, they are involved in all discussions on the topic and they usually care about the topic. Their interest is generally genuine and it usually comes from a personal passion to discover and master the topic or more general, from a passion to be the best. They are usually competitive and that is part of what makes them SMEs. They improve quite often their skills and their knowledge. I would go as far as to consider they are the stars of their teams.
Nothing here is to say that the SME definitely doesn’t have the skills to be a leader too. There are some of them already achieved in their leadership skills as well, but those are the exceptions of this article.
So then, what makes them struggle when leading a team if they are already the SME? As I mentioned, the entire team is willingly going to them for advice and expertise already. They seem to accept her as an SME and they seem to take her opinion and knowledge into consideration. What changes when the same person the team was looking up to on the topic becomes the leader? Why people seem not to look up to the same person when besides being the SME now they have taken the leader role as well?
This article doesn’t consider difference between leaders and managers in terms of leadership skills. They are just roles in this article. I use the term manager to convey a hierarchy meaning manager is the leader of leaders.
I’ve seen so many managers or mentors genuinely trying to support these struggling leaders by giving them books, all sorts of materials, supporting them to take leadership courses and new certifications, having one to one meetings and going through their concerns with them, trying to support them in the best way they know how. But they are struggling with the same problems themselves because they never learned what matters either. And the circle goes on and we have more an more leaders struggling, not loving what they are doing and just going through the motions. I could write a book only on how this might play out but let’s get back to the topic at hand. How is accepting yourself going to help here?
I would start with what it means to me to accept yourself. Let’s consider an exercise for each of us to define ourselves: let’s make a list of ourselves. To make it more reliable, here are some questions: what are my strengths? What are my values? How many of my values and my strengths I use in my professional life? And to what extent?
Like everything on this Earth, we have what we would name positive traits and less than positive traits. They all come from the same place, they are just applied more or less than it would benefit us. Let’s take for instance being a perfectionist, aka be perfect. I love to use this example as I have so many be perfect type of people around me. How does be perfect help you in being an SME? Easy, right? You continue to learn more about the topic, you build more on your skills, you keep current with the events and the news on the topic, you learn from your mistakes and you criticize yourself when you fail. And you grow more and more every day.
How is be perfect going to bite you if you don’t accept it for what it is? Well, when you extend this be perfect trait to your team mates, you want everything done in the perfect way, most often than not, your way. You don’t settle when it comes to the quality of your own work, so why would you settle when it comes to the quality of the team’s work? You review an artifact produced by a team member, you see it can be improved and you roll your sleeves and do it yourself. Or at least you want to but sometimes time doesn’t allow for this. In either case, you fail to see the value in what was delivered, even when it is not your kind of perfect. You focus on what could be improved and that is usually conveyed to your team members in a form of you are not good enough. Time after time, your team mates will find it difficult to come to you for answers or support as you continue to focus on what is not good enough. Who likes feeling they are not good enough for their superiors? They might consider you can’t evaluate them properly and that is actually right. You are holding them to different standards, you are holding them to your own standards or to the standards you target to achieve yourself. And that is not fair for anyone, not for them, not for yourself. Of course there are a lot more variations of expected outcomes from your team members, but this article is too short to detail on those. I assume you get the gist. But what are you actually missing here? Have you asked yourself if the artifact was actually meeting its purpose? Was the artifact good enough for its intended use?
So now, leading right into my goal for this article: Why does it matter to be at peace with yourself, to accept yourself and to believe in yourself to make for a leader worth following?
The road to accept yourself is usually a bumpy one and I believe it is worth taking it. But even before you get to that point, there are some aspects you could start with. For example, knowing about yourself you are driven to be perfect and that you target excellence in your field is enough to stop yourself when one of your team mates delivers a good artifact, but not a perfect one. You would know to appreciate the value of it without holding it to perfect standards. You know about yourself you have a tendency to compete with others as to be the star of the team, the most knowledgeable on the topic. And when you know and accept this part of yourself, you are aware to stop and change your approach next time you receive a great artifact delivered by one of your team mates and you appreciate it for what it is, instead of finding flaws.
How about actually accepting yourself? Well, that is actually amazing! You know you are driven to improve yourself without competing with someone else. You understand your actual value and you think highly about yourself. You are kind to your team mates and you still share the passion to learn, to grow. Your team mates believe in your skills and they listen to your ideas. Why? Because you don’t compete with them and because you don’t criticize them, but you are working together towards the same goal. Of course, there are so many other reasons but you get the gist.
(*Throughout this article, I used one or the other gender without any implications of the individual on the role – they can be interchanged or replaced with just one gender throughout the entire article as it makes no difference to the topic approached)
0 Comments