Overvaluing Expertise
Excerpts from: Sally Helgesen, How Women Rise, Random House Business Books, 2019 (pp. 86-92)
Trying to master every detail of your job in order to become an expert is a great strategy for keeping the job you have. But if your goal is to move to a higher level, your expertise is probably not going to get you there.
It may be because, like many women, you’ve assumed expertise is the surest route to success. And so you put enormous effort into learning every aspect of your job and assuring your work is letter-perfect.
Meanwhile, your male colleagues are taking a different route, trying to do the job well enough while focusing their time on building the relationships and visibility that will get them to the next level.
That’s because the top jobs always require managing and leading people who have expertise, not providing expertise yourself.
Your commitment to expertise may have helped you survive and may have gotten you where you are today. But as you move higher, it may start to get in your way.
Feeling fulfilled at work requires two things: mastery and recognition.
Mastery is the expertise part, the sheer enjoyment you feel when you do something you value really well.
The second requirement for workplace fulfillment is being recognized for what you do.
You need someone else to recognize you. It’s not surprising, then, that women tend to overvalue expertise, since women often have a tougher time being recognized for their achievements.
Women are often under-recognized because they’re uncomfortable claiming their achievements. If talking yourself up or drawing attention to what you’ve accomplished makes you feel like a self-important jerk, you probably prefer to keep your head down and hope that others notice what you’re contributing. But women are also at times under-recognized because the people around them undervalue their contributions.
When you’re routinely under-recognized, expertise can become a defense, your way of asserting your value regardless of what others perceive or think.
But it’s insufficient if you want to move ahead.
Ashley
When asked what was most responsible for her meteoric rise, “It was learning to let go of being an expert.”
While expertise is expected in almost any job, it doesn’t do much to help you get ahead.
When I joined the company, there were very few women, and I worried about being up to the job.
I felt I had to watch my step and earn my way, so I focused on learning every detail, becoming expert in every task, proving my value, and avoiding criticism. Which is fine, but it’s a poor way to position yourself for something bigger.”
- Learning every detail to perfection uses up a lot of bandwidth, leaving you little time to develop the relationships you need to move ahead.
- Your efforts to do everything perfectly usually have the effect of demonstrating that you’re perfect for the job you already have.
- The expertise you develop may make you indispensable to your boss, who will quite logically want to keep you where you are.
She’d been with the company six years when her boss mentioned that her name had surfaced for a job.
“He told me that he, my boss, couldn’t afford to lose me,” Ashley says.
I saw nothing wrong with it. I actually felt flattered that he needed me so much. It was the validation I’d been looking for since joining the company”.
After watching two less qualified colleagues get juicy promotions, Ashley realized her “mastery mind-set” approach to her current role was virtually designed to keep her stuck.
“Of course you need to deliver on your work, but you’ve got to think bigger than that. It’s rare to get promoted because you’ve done your job flawlessly. You’re most likely to get promoted because people know you and trust that you could be contributing at a higher level. And because you demonstrate you’re ready for a challenge.”
It required her to think deep and hard about her strengths. This changed her picture of what she had to contribute. She says, “I’d always taken for granted that being diligent and super-conscientious was what made me successful in the jobs I’d held. But looking beneath the surface, I saw that my skill at managing relationships was actually my biggest asset. That’s what really qualified me for the next job. More important, it helped me see that I was ready.”