Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there – like Myers-Briggs Personality Testing – to help you understand a bit more about yourself and maybe why it's difficult to let go when you're used to being successful as a specialist. You can still lead by example, but you need to allow others around you to share that limelight and sometimes take the credit.

You mentioned delegation there. What’s the best way to learn to delegate if you haven't done it before?

That's a very good question! You have to realize that other people have got skills that you haven't. If you use tools like Belbin’s Team Roles, you’ll see that other people may have strengths where you have weaknesses. It’s also about talking to people, being honest, and being a transparent and authentic leader – to get you to a situation where you can delegate.

Do you have any recommendations for becoming that transparent and authentic leader – especially if you’re new to leadership?

I would always say “Be yourself” (unless you're not happy with yourself!). The risk of impostor syndrome is always going to be there, especially if it's a new business – or even if it’s the same business but you think you don’t have the right leadership skills. So you have to gain those leadership skills.

And be honest with your team that you're learning. Honesty and transparency are the keys to being authentic, because if you're not those things, people won't follow you.

When you were transitioning to leadership yourself, what was the most important thing for you to learn?

I think it was the need to understand other people. There's no doubt that the collaboration of a team is so much more powerful than any individual. I'm a big football fan, and I think that if you look at how the best football is played, it's by teams that can move the ball collectively. They get from one end of the field to the other far quicker, far more successfully than if each player tried to get past everybody on their own. And I think that can be applied to all walks of life.

What’s the relationship between expertise and leadership? And do you think experts make better leaders in the end?

They do, absolutely. And I'd use the doctors that I work with as a great example of that. To lead a hospital, in my opinion, you have to be a doctor. You need to have the understanding and the skill set that only doctors have. But you can't be just an expert, without the leadership credentials and the right soft skills.

I saw that in catering too, being a head chef. A well-rounded leader will always be the expert in the kitchen, but it’s their leadership skills that make others follow them.

And what if you're stepping into a leadership or management role, but aren't necessarily an expert in the field? Can you still be a successful leader?

You can – and I think it’s about doing as much research as you can into the theories of leadership and the frameworks that are available to help you. There’s Tuckman’s Team-Development Model, for example. Or the GROW model of coaching. And coaching in general is great for developing leaders, but it only works if the culture’s right and people have an open, “growth” mindset.

I remember how skeptical I used to be when I was starting out. Chefs used to have to be very strong willed, and I didn't really believe in “leadership theories”! So I had to develop a more open mindset. It’s something we now focus on at the university, and we set it as an expectation for senior leaders from the start. You might not use all of the techniques we’ll teach you, but the more you're willing to take on board, the more open and well-rounded you’ll be.

I still love cooking, but I never thought that understanding leadership theories – and using them to learn about my team members – would be so beneficial. Without that I wouldn’t be where I am now. I'm highly motivated, but it’s really helped to have frameworks that have shown me where I need to get and how to get there.

Do you have any final thoughts or tips for us about moving from expert to leader?

I’d say to believe in yourself. I'm a marathon runner and a triathlete, and you certainly have to believe in yourself there – because nine times out of ten your mind will give up before your body does! But if your mind is focused enough, you're already halfway there. And I think that applies to the challenges of professional life too.

What’s Next?

Matt appears in a new Mindtools video called “Experts in Leadership Roles.” Mindtools is packed with advice for aspiring and new leaders, and our article “What Is Leadership?” is a great place to start.

Tip of the Week

Stuck in Career Hell? Look for an Angel

By Jonathan Hancock, Mindtools Senior Editor and Writer

I’d reached a low point in my career. I was deeply unhappy at work, struggling to see how to make the job any better, and unable to see a way toward anything else. One night I was talking to a former colleague about my plight when – almost as an afterthought – I asked her if she had any ideas about what I should do next. And, to my surprise, she did.

Not just a vague suggestion either: it was news of a job opening that sounded like it would suit me down to the ground, accompanied by a promise to get me all the contact details I’d need.

She kept her word. The next day I phoned the number she gave me, organized a meeting – which led to an interview, which went very well. And within a couple of weeks I had a job offer that was firm enough for me to hand a resignation letter to my current boss. Suddenly I was preparing for an exciting new challenge, while breathing a huge sigh of relief that I’d found a way out of the hole I’d been in.

Thank goodness I’d asked for help!

British entrepreneur Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones calls people like my friend “guardian angels.” They have the power to save you from seemingly hopeless situations – but only if you talk to them, and then put in the work to move forward.

“They're not going to hold your hand and take you through,” he says. “But they'll be able to say, ‘Oh, how about speaking to so-and-so?’ Or give you suggestions to start preparing you for that journey. So, none of that is going to happen unless you start to talk about it.”

When you’re feeling down at work, it’s easy to assume that everyone else will be as negative about your situation and as stuck for escape routes as you – and so keep quiet.

Don’t. My tip, from experience, is to start talking to people you trust. Often they’ll have fresh perspectives and new ideas. At the very least they’ll make you see some light at the end of the tunnel. But, more often than you might expect, they’ll know exactly how you can get there.

You can hear Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones explaining his “guardian angels” theory, and get career-unsticking tips from an array of helpful experts, by listening to our Expert Voices podcast called “Plan Your Career From Here.”

Pain Points Podcast

Don't miss the latest episode of our "Pain Points" podcast, exclusive to Mindtools members!

In this episode, we talk to economist George Ward about wellbeing. What is wellbeing? Can we measure it? Can we improve it? Join us as George shares insights from his decades of research, answering all these questions and more.

Subscribe Today

Video of the Week

Matt Bungay, Experts in Leadership Roles

What happens when an expert moves into a leadership role, and their specialist skills are no longer enough?

In this video, Matt Bungay reveals the lessons he's learned about how experts become confident, capable leaders.

Watch Now

News Roundup

This Week's Global Workplace Insights

Succeeding as Yourself

Do you bring your authentic self to work? Do you feel comfortable revealing who you are and what matters to you? Do you feel psychologically safe?

According to research published by People Management, workplace emotional security has declined over the past five years. While 82 percent of the 2,000 people surveyed said it was important to bring their authentic selves to work, only 42 percent felt that they could do so – a drop of around 25 percentage points.

And it’s a downward trend that’s having an increasingly detrimental impact on both people’s wellbeing and the quality of their work. The report – by the charity Mental Health First Aid and Henley Business School – explores what can happen when we start “masking” parts of ourselves. Around a third of respondents said that their performance, engagement, and overall mental health were harmed when they felt they had to actively hide aspects of who they are.

What’s more, there was a clear discrepancy between senior and junior staff members’ perceptions of safety. Far fewer junior managers than senior ones felt psychologically safe.

The article suggests that a starting point for every organization should be a clear policy against harassment and bullying. But there’s clearly much more to be done to turn this tide – and you can get a wealth of ideas about improving psychological safety from our Expert Voices panel, our video with Phil Willcox, and our article “The Psychological Contract.”

Is This an Overlooked Leadership Skill? You Can Say That Again!

What do Fatboy Slim, Amazon’s annual shareholder letter, and pretty much every election campaign speech you’ve ever heard have in common?

The answer is repetition. They all deliver the same phrases or ideas over and over again.

Fatboy Slim does it with sampled lyrics. Jeff Bezos at Amazon attaches his original shareholder letter to every new one he sends out, to repeat the company’s founding principles year after year. And politicians have long realized the power of repetition for embedding their core messages in voters’ minds.

According to a recent Economist article, repetition is also a key leadership skill.

Done well, repetition means that you always have core ideas to start from – or to fall back on if you get stuck. It helps your people to remember what you tell them, too. There’s even evidence that repetition makes your ideas more convincing and compelling.

It only works if you can do it without sounding bored, of course, and without your audience thinking you’re wasting their time! But that’s exactly what the best leaders manage to do. And bear in mind that far more employees feel that their bosses under-communicate rather than over-communicate!

So, even if you’ve heard the same words come out of your mouth a hundred times, your people will be much slower to feel “repetitive stress.” Meanwhile, they’ll be remembering, believing and internalizing your key messages – and, if you’re doing it well enough – embracing your vision and gathering behind your plans.

So why not awaken your inner Fatboy Slim and experiment with the power of repetition? Then do it again. And again…

See you next week for more member-exclusive content and insight from the Mindtools team!