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Expertship resource centre

How to Lead Experts

Expertship Primer

How to Lead Experts

Summary

Technical teams – such as IT, finance, HR, engineering and so on - are comprised of many senior individual contributors who are experts in their respective fields. Do mean leaders need to approach them differently? Why, and how?

Our programs

Coaching for managers of technical teams

Leader of Experts

How to achieve peak performance, seniority and influence in a technical role

Master Expert

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Advice and downloads in this resource centre

1

What business skills do technical experts and individual contributors need to be effective?

As experts rise in seniority, they increasingly need to understand strategy, your commercials, executive sponsorship and relationship building to be effective. Otherwise they get "stuck" in a role that does not keep them effective or happy. An intervention to coach the expert with better business skills can help them get "unstuck".

Includes download

A short guide to our leader of experts program

2

How to use Expertship self-assessment to coach your technical team to develop their business skills

A “Master Expert” is a technical specialist who has mastered the relationship and commercial elements of a senior technical role - not just developed their technical expertise. Here are two tools for self-assessing your progress on that journey.

Includes download

The expertship model self-assessment, instructions, and an extract of chapter 1 of master expert

3

How can technical teams quickly master organizational commercials and strategy?

An expert needs commercial context to understand the role their expertise plays in creating value, but few technical specialists are formally trained in "understanding the commercials".

Includes download

Download chapter 26 of master expert, why market context matters so much

4

How can technical specialists more effectively influence stakeholders?

Without formal training, many experts are not aware of the different methods of influence available, and they may not use the most appropriate method at the best time. Here's a tool to help select between techniques, and plan for better results.

Includes download

An a4 self-assessment of your influencing style, and chapter 23 of master expert, which explains how to use it

5

How do you lead a team of developers, data scientists, actuaries, scientists, engineers or other technical roles when you're not an expert yourself?

You’ve just taken over a team of technical specialists and it’s your first role. Or you’re a generalist leader whose team members have expertise you don't. What should your first actions be?
6

Leaders of Expert Teams Resource Centre

Leading teams of technical subject matter experts (SMEs) that often know more about things that the leader does is really challenging. We have created this FREE series of articles to assist leaders of experts lead them brilliantly.