The transition from functional expert to executive leader

I have a very clear memory of watching my dad pack the car for a holiday with Tetris-like precision. I would have been about ten years old, and I remember thinking “I can’t wait to be grown up, so I know how to do everything”.

It makes me laugh now – if only that was how it worked! I’m still waiting for the day I’m finally grown up enough to know how everything works.

In fact, of course, we’re always learning.

I have been thinking lately about the transition from functional expert to executive leader. This is often thought of as a quantum leap from the security of subject matter knowledge to the wilds of having to make decisions through ambiguity and incomplete information across a range of domains. I’ve heard it spoken about as being a total shift from one way of operating to another, a sink-or-swim transition that you’d better nail, or else.

Really, though, every career stage just involves learning a new set of skills.

In your early career, this is typically functional skills. In my case as a new lawyer, this was things like learning to draft and negotiate contracts.

In senior leadership, it’s no different. You are learning new skills – but in this case, it’s skills like leading leaders, creating organisational culture, influencing across functional areas, and connecting dots both longer into the future and more widely across your domains of operation.

It might look something like this:

Learning a new skill feels uncomfortable until eventually it becomes something you can do automatically. I think this is true across all levels of leadership, and remembering this can help demystify the step into more senior roles. You’ll have things to learn. It’s ok. You’ll get there.

What are your thoughts on this?

Until next week,

Take care of yourself and others

Madeleine

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