The move from expert to leader starts when you stop being the one with the answers.
That’s hard to hear when answers are what got you here. You knew how things worked. You fixed what was broken. People came to you.
In a growing company, solving problems stops being enough. On Monday I wrote about what happens when your job changes but your title doesn’t. On Wednesday, about why people question your best answers. Today is about what comes next: how an expert becomes the person people trust to bring them together.
Key Takeaways
- The move from expert to leader isn’t about knowing more. It’s about building enough trust that people solve problems with you.
- Empathy is the skill that gets you there. It isn’t just emotional support. It lowers defenses so people tell you what’s really wrong.
- Empathy at scale means building a place where whole teams listen to each other, not just you listening to them.
- Silos and blame are connected. When people stop fearing blame, the walls come down.
What Oliver Was Really Practicing
Oliver was the CTO of a pharma company scaling up to bring a new drug to market. His solutions were good, but people kept resisting them.
So he practiced listening without solving, first with his two teenage daughters, then at work. He and his team met with each department and named the fears underneath the delays: fear of being blamed, of losing credibility, of losing control.
What Oliver was practicing has a name: empathy.
A lot of experts hear “empathy” and think it’s soft. What Oliver found was practical. Empathy wasn’t just emotional support. It was a way to lower defensiveness and build trust. When people felt heard, they told him where the real risks were. (More on that in Empathy at Work: How Good Leaders Unlock Motivation and Performance.)
The Problem One Conversation Can’t Fix
Listening one-on-one was working. But the company had a bigger problem.
Every department wanted to own its own data systems, which would be costly and redundant. And the leadership team had a blame culture. One executive’s advice to Oliver: “Make it someone else’s problem.”
Oliver saw that the two were connected. When people fear being blamed, they protect themselves. Walls go up. Problems aren’t solved, just passed around.
From his point of view, the lack of trust was structural. He needed empathy at scale.
Oliver’s Idea: The IT Council
So Oliver created something new: a quarterly IT Council, with every department at the table.
It was his idea, built on what had already worked: listen first, build trust, then solve. Only now, instead of one leader listening to everyone, everyone would listen to each other.
The council had two jobs. Show every department the bigger picture and give them a place to hear each other’s concerns. Oliver’s role wasn’t to deliver answers. When someone’s anxiety came up, he would step in, validate the risk, and then help the group work out what was causing it and how to reduce it.
That’s empathy at scale.
Finding Common Ground
The theme of the first council was data management. Where would employee data live? How would clinical data be protected? Who would oversee compliance?
As people talked, the real fear surfaced. Departments were afraid that a companywide data system meant losing control of their data.
So Oliver proposed a split. The departments that generate data own the data. IT owns the systems that store it.
He compared it to a city’s streets. You own your car and everything in it, and you drive where you want. The city owns the roads and keeps them safe. “We fix the potholes,” he told them, “and you get to drive.”
It worked because it answered the fear underneath the objection. Departments weren’t resisting technology. They were protecting ownership.
By the end of the meeting, every department agreed. The CEO sent Oliver a note thanking him for pulling the team together. Oliver told me it felt like a miracle to get everyone agreeing in one room at one time, and that it only happened because of the trust his team had built over the previous months.
The council kept meeting. It became the place where departments raised risks together, without blame or shame, and solved them.
From Expert to Leader
Looking back, Oliver put it this way:
“I used to think my role was to solve problems. But being a problem solver was keeping me in the role of a subject matter expert. Only when I stopped trying to be the expert could other people see me as a leader.”
That’s the move from expert to leader. Oliver didn’t lose his expertise. He stopped leading with it and started leading with empathy. And instead of resisting him, people started inviting him into bigger strategic conversations.
Where to Start
You don’t need a council to begin. Three small moves:
- Make room for risk without blame. In your next cross-team meeting, ask, “What could go wrong for your team?” Treat the answers as information, not complaints.
- Validate before you solve. When someone raises a worry, say back what’s at stake for them before you offer a fix.
- Look for what people are afraid to lose. When a team resists, ask yourself what ownership they’re protecting. Then look for a way they can keep control of what’s valuable to them.
Going from expert to leader changes how other people see you, and that’s hard to see from the inside. It goes faster with someone outside the situation who can.
Why Now
Next year’s plans are being set across departments right now. If you’re still the one everyone brings problems to, or the one they quietly work around, that pattern will follow you into 2027.
This is the season to change how you lead.
Plan Your 2027 Leadership Move
If you’re ready to make the move from expert to leader, let’s spend 45 minutes on it. I’m offering a limited number of free 2027 Leadership Plan calls on Zoom this fall.
We’ll talk through what’s changed, sort out what’s really going on and what you can control, and choose one first move for Q1. Within two business days you’ll get a one-page plan, no commitment necessary.
Limited slots, through December 16.
Book your 2027 Leadership Plan call
Keep Learning
When Your Job Changes but Your Title Doesn’t: Monday’s post on the moment itself.
Why People Question Your Best Answers: Wednesday’s post on what’s underneath the pushback.
Five Moments That Tell You It’s Time to Get Help With Your Leadership: the other four moments, and how to tell which one you’re in.
Learn more about Oliver’s journey in the journey preview library.
Find out more about the framework here.
FAQ
What does it mean to go from expert to leader?
It means shifting from being valued for your answers to being valued for the trust and alignment you create. Experts solve problems. Leaders create the conditions for other people to solve problems together.
What is empathy at scale?
It’s taking the listening a leader does one-on-one and building it into how a whole organization works, through a regular forum where teams hear each other’s concerns and raise risks without fear of blame.
How do you break down silos at work?
Start with what each team is afraid of losing. Silos usually protect something: control, credibility, or cover from blame. When people feel understood and can keep what matters to them, they’re far more willing to work across boundaries.
How is the 2027 Leadership Plan call different from a sales call?
You bring what’s changed. We sort out what’s going on and pick one first move for Q1. You get a one-page written plan within two business days, no commitment necessary.
