The Best Leaders Are Also Technical Experts

Being a great manager isn’t enough to lead others to success. You also need to deeply understand your organization’s core business.

Amanda Goodall studies the relationship between leaders and organizational performance. She argues that the best leaders are technical experts — for example, doctors who head up hospitals or all-star basketball players who go on to manage teams.

“We find that if your boss understands the nature of the work, then they can actually help you,” says Goodall, a professor at Bayes Business School at the City University of London. “They can assess you well, and they can encourage you in the right direction to advance in your career, and that is a very important element for job satisfaction.”

In this episode, you’ll learn how to approach the transition from expert individual contributor to a leadership role. And you’ll learn what to do if you’re a generalist managing experts. (Spoiler alert: self-awareness and listening skills are important.)

Key episode topics include: leadership, developing employees, managing people, building trust, feedback, and talent management.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR IdeaCast episode: Why Technical Experts Make Great Leaders (April 2018)
• Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.