From Expert to Leader: The Shift That Matters

I’ve seen both sides of this story.

Jim was a fantastic plumber — one of the best. When he got promoted to superintendent, he struggled. He wasn’t fixing pipes, he wasn’t getting his hands dirty, and He Felt like he wasn’t doing his job. “I think I’m letting people down,” he admitted.

I told him, “Jim, the most important tool you have now is the one between your ears.” His role had changed — not from worker to boss, but from problem-solver to people-developer.

Then there was Joe. He was the best painter in the company, so they made him the manager of the painters. Within months, every painter quit. Why? Because Joe was a jerk. He had the skill but not the leadership.

We miss the obvious. When people advance in business, it’s no longer just about technical ability — it’s about how well they manage, develop, and support others in mastering that ability.

What makes that difficult, for most people (as seen by Joe the Jerk) is that he couldn’t understand why people couldn’t paint as well as he could — and he was terrible at teaching them his instincts, or, helping them paint well driven by their own instincts.

This has me reflecting:

Supervisors are often promoted for their technical skills, but they succeed based on their ability to lead and develop people.

For many of my clients, technical proficiency is the easy part. But having a skill doesn’t mean someone is ready to manage others who have it — or who are still learning. Promoting the wrong person without leadership training isn’t just a challenge — it’s costly. What are you doing to prepare your best workers to become your best leaders?