From Technical Expert to Leadership: Susan Schwartz

Be emotionally intelligent to lead motivated teams When you lead, you can't be the smartest person in the room

Episode 126 (Susan is based in San Francisco)

In this conversation with Susan Schwartz, we explore:

• Making the transition from star performer to team leader
• Developing an insider code when working with different personality types
• The difference between emotional intelligence and emotionally intelligent
• When technical expertise encounters the challenge of leadership
• Building the team by delegating responsibilities and developing skills
• The leaders' dirty little secret about leading

About Susan Schwartz:

Susan is author of, Creating a Greater Whole: A Project Manager's Guide to Becoming a Leader. It's the main textbook for a Project Management Communication course at Georgetown University.

Susan developed an Expert to Excellence leadership program that uses practical, measurable Emotional Intelligence methods that help people understand intangible leadership skills and create tangible action plans

Learn more about Susan and her programs at

expertisetoexcellence.me

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Excerpts from this conversation with Susan Schwartz

Emotional intelligence is about observations and behaviors

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And what happens when a technical person is promoted for their expertise. And all those years, they spent honing that knowledge. They've had a mindset, that's all about them.

What is their expertise, people come to them. They are the expert. When you get promoted to be a manager or a leadership role, all of a sudden, it's not about you.

It's about them. And that's awfully scary because your performance evaluation is not based on what you achieved. Your performance evaluation is based on what the people who work with you or for you, and perhaps even partners outside of your company.

So you have to really start paying attention to them

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07:00

Right. And you've got to delegate. That's perhaps the one of two most important skills because you're so busy doing their job, you can't do your job till after five o'clock.

You can't get promoted if you're busy doing your people's work, because you are so very important. And nobody else can do what you can do. That can't possibly promote you, because you're too valuable in your current role.

 

07:31

And I heard of a pearl of wisdom there that I want to repeat for people, if you are a leader, a team leader, a manager, if you're the only one that can do the job, then you aren't doing your job.

If you're the only one who can do what it is that your your department your team delivers, then you're really not doing it properly. Because you're not the manager, you think you're still the star.

And your success is dependent on their success. And so that comes back to you have to start being open, and realize that your success is by giving people professional development, helping them grow.

And that's the second piece of the puzzle. And this is why I love the name of your podcast is these new, expert knowledge experts transforming to leadership role, sometimes have difficulty assuring that the message they intended is received as they intended.

And because how often I've done it a lot of you sure you've done it altogether. That's not what I meant. And it still happens to me today. And it's not what I meant.

Because you you just made an assumption that they think exactly like you think. So if you're explaining it in your terms, of course they should know it. And then you end up getting frustrated doing it yourself.

And then people leave, because they're just humiliated. They think they're stupid. And then because you're not your message isn't being received as you intended. And you get frustrated because they're not smart enough or fast enough. So then you take it back and you do it yourself.

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Your Intended Message is the podcast about how you can boost your career and business success by improving your communication skills. We’ll examine the aspects of how we communicate one-to-one, one to few and one to many – plus that important conversation, one to self.

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