What is the difference between Expertship learning initiatives and Leadership learning initiatives?
This is the most common question we are asked at the Institute.
The first difference is that Expertship initiatives are aimed at subject matter experts (often highly experienced individual contributors) whereas leadership initiatives are aimed at people leaders. These two groups operate inside medium-to-large organisations in completely different ways, and therefore, in order to be successful, need learning initiatives that are directly customised to their needs.
There are four differences to take into consideration.
1. Different Objectives
People leaders and subject matter experts do different things.
People leaders are charged with effectively leading and managing a team of employees, who report to them, to produce pre-agreed and measurable outcomes.
Subject matter experts (SMEs) are charged with effectively deploying expertise in their specialist field. They don’t have reports and often work for multiple teams across departmental boundaries. The skills they need to master to operate at the highest level of expertise are quite different from those needed to run a team of people.
2. Different Context
People leaders operate in an environment that looks like this. They: ● Have authority over their team members. ● Report to a single manager/leader. ● Have a team with a clear purpose and responsibilities. ● Have clear success measures. ● Can control makeup of their team via recruitment and churn. ● Have succession and career routes which are clearly signposted. ● Are charged to grow team performance. ● Are charged to build capability of their team and to delegate.
Subject matter experts, however, operate in quite a different environment. They: ● Have no formal authority over their team colleagues or stakeholders. ● Report to multiple managers/ leaders on multiple projects. ● Have a role which has ambiguous boundaries, shifting responsibilities, and competing timelines. ● Have quite opaque success measures. ● Cannot control who they are asked to collaborate/work with. ● Are often single source of knowledge and can be trapped in their current role as a consequence. ● Typically have no immediate reports to delegate to.
Context is everything. SMEs operate in complex, multi-faceted consulting and delivery roles, where they must collaborate and deliver with stakeholders over whom they have no authority. This suggests that the skills they need a different curriculum.
3. Different Curriculum
People leaders need to learn skills to manage and lead teams of people. Experts need to learn skills to develop, curate, and deploy expertise.
A typical people leader curriculum might look like this: ● Setting performance expectations. ● Motivating teams. ● Driving high performance. ● Dealing with under-performance. ● Delegation. ● Developing others. ● Team planning and succession. ● Recruitment. ● Leading change. ● Adaptive leadership. ● Inclusive leadership.
Whereas an effective curriculum for subject matter experts ought to look like this: ● Knowledge strategy. ● Knowledge transfer. ● Advanced consulting skills. ● Solutioning. ● Market context, value drivers. ● Innovation and ideation. ● Stakeholder engagement. ● Systems thinking. ● Change catalyst. ● Value multiplier and value impact. ● Strategic technical decision-making. ● Prioritisation and risk. ● Strategic alignment and scenario planning.
Leadership initiatives have a team impact focus. Expertship initiatives have an individual impact focus. Team members often have quite similar roles. Senior individual experts typically have almost unique roles.
4. Different Assessment Criteria
Many adult learning initiatives have assessment phases built into the program, to build self-awareness, understand current performance, and identify growth opportunities. Given the different roles people leaders and subject matter experts play, you can imagine that a significantly different assessment is needed.
People leader assessments tend to measure: ● Leadership impact and style. ● Team engagement. ● Results orientation. ● Capability building. ● Delegation. ● Leading change. ● Adaptive leadership. ● Inclusive leadership. ● Managing under-performance.
Whereas subject matter expert assessments ought to measure: ● Expert knowledge. ● Solutioning and consulting skills. ● Knowledge transfer skills. ● Market context, business acumen, future focus. ● Value multiplier and value impact. ● Change agility. ● Stakeholder engagement. ● Collaboration. ● Personal Impact.
Separate solutions for separate employee groups
You’ll find on this website some of the assets you can use to help build an Expertship initiative that directly addresses the learning needs of your subject matter experts.
Central among these is The Expertship Model, which is described in detail in our publications. The Expertship Model is a three-tiered capability framework for top subject matter experts.
Allied with the Expertship Model is The Expertship360, a bespoke 360-degree multi-rater survey which is designed specifically to measure the great things the best experts do. It also features a global benchmark, generated from more than a million data points collected by the Institute over the past few years.
The Institute, through its delivery partners around the world, also offers bespoke, in-house and public programs to build the capability of your most valuable subject matter experts. Our two most popular programs are Mastering Expertship and Leader of Experts.
Download a more detailed briefing deck about the difference between Expertship initiatives and Leadership Initiatives below.
