A new neighbor asked me to go to coffee. During the course of small-talk she asked me, “Now what exactly do you do”?
I shared with her that I’m an Interpersonal Efficiency Leadership coach and consultant in healthcare helping physician leaders and other high performing healthcare leaders be more effective and fulfilled in their roles.
Her response was a bit unexpected. “So, what makes you the expert?”
I paused for a moment and realized no one had actually asked me that before. So what does make me the expert on physician leadership? After all, I am not a physician. I am a former healthcare administrator turned coach and consultant.
My first instinct was to list my accomplishments in my resume, my training and my relevant leadership experience after 17 years as a healthcare administrator. I felt this initial instinct to justify why I am the expert.
But then I realized, that my gut response to her question was more about me and my need to prove myself as an expert than it was to simply answer the question of a curious friend.
Why do we need to have our CV be a certain length, to have a certain list of accomplishments and need to have certain letters behind our name to be considered an expert? Whose rules are those?
Sure, checking the experience and education boxes may be a relevant way to measure whether you are a knowledge or content expert, but does it truly make you an expert in your field?
Expert is a loaded word. It requires confidence to call yourself an expert. It can be received as egotistical by others who might be threatened by your position of expertise. Can we simply call ourselves an expert and so it shall be?
The word expert has always made me a bit uncomfortable because I think about it in the context of knowing more than anyone else.
Expertise is relative. A surgeon who has been in her current position for five years and has done the most of one particular surgery as anyone on staff would certainly be seen as an expert to the patient about to go into her OR. But what about the surgeon who actually invented the procedure or technique who happens to be 20 years her senior? Wouldn’t that surgeon also be seen as the expert? And would the senior surgeon consider the junior surgeon an expert in her field?
How many experts can we have in one area anyway?
So needless to say, this conversation with my neighbor got me thinking.
Can we be more effective in our leadership roles simply by redefining the meaning of being an expert?
Leadership is a funny thing. You can learn all of the tools, the psychology, the theories and the tactics to become a better leader, but that may not make you an expert. We all have our own rules for becoming an expert and for labeling someone an expert.
If we are constantly at the mercy of how others view us, how can we be confident in our skills and abilities if the definition of expert varies by audience?
What if being an expert, simply meant being a student and honing your ability to continually learn, grow and adapt?
What if being an expert meant that you had uncovered your unique potential for your particular area of interest? What if it meant that in your leadership role, you were able to connect with every member of your team and understand what it is they need to unlock their potential to be more secure and more confident?
What if being an expert meant you were so clear about what you needed to accomplish and the impact that you needed to have that you were driven by that clarity so that everything you do is aligned with reaching that ultimate vision?
What if being an expert was simply the drive to serve in a new way—a drive that leads you to gather the necessary expertise needed to excel in your role?
What if being an expert simply meant that you understood your own relating patterns, you understood how to impact change at a certain level because you were able to influence yourself and not react in certain situations?
Try this—experiment with calling yourself an expert. Does it enhance your confidence and drive you to step up and do all you can to serve and master your role in a new way?
I challenge each of you to define what expert means for you and to start using that term as a way of being proud of your accomplishments. It might just help you focus on what you have accomplished instead of how much more you have to learn.
And when we do that, our mindset becomes one of unlimited possibilities.
Carrie,
Your healthcare leadership expert ☺
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