Senior role, but struggling with lack of confidence and specialist knowledge

[Whereisme]

I have been in a new role since the beginning of the year with a really lovely team. I am a senior manager, but haven’t worked in this specific field before. I am trying to learn as much as I can, but I find it hard line managing people who have worked there for a number of years and therefore have good knowledge of the processes and operational side of the organisation. I know I was hired for my strategic experience, but feel really unconfident. Also feel like an idiot when someone comes to me with a specific query and I’m not sure of the answer! Apart from learning and asking questions please can people advise me what else to do and how I can be more confident!

Ha, I could have written your post! In an almost identical situation but unfortunately no advice, just solidarity because I'm still working it out myself.

Where people ask me for help on something I have gone with the approach of talking it through with them and helping them to find out the answer themselves. I go higher up if I really don't know the answer, but I also encourage team members to ask each other first before coming to me, because there is so much knowledge and experience in the team and someone might already know the answer. I do baulk at asking experienced team members for help myself, because I've been promoted from within the team and I feel like a fraud given how experienced they all are. But nobody else went for the job 🤷

Thanks for your reply. I’m so glad it isn’t just me! It’s a good idea to talk through the problem with them to try and find the answer.

Everyone else at my level has worked their way up through the organisation so they have so much knowledge! I think this means that they assume I know more than I do!

I want to do a really good job without constantly feeling that I shouldn’t be in the role 😕

I think the thing to do is to remember it's a team effort, you don't have to know anything - are there others you can refer questions to that you don't know the answer to? It's OK to say 'I'm not the expert in X as I'm still new to this field, but Amina/Richard/Amy should know'

I am also in this position and glad I’m not alone! Feel like I’m winging it. I’ve tried to rationalise it this weekend, give myself a talking to and tried to put how important it actually is in perspective. I can still get away with “I’m new, so talk me through that..” but think that might be wearing thin now. I’m working on my confidence this week and hoping I can fake it til I make it!

The best answer you can give is to say you don't know but will find out and get back to them, then do it and in a timely way. You will learn it and people would prefer a timely correct answer than an immediate wrong one.

Also in same position - glad I'm not alone. Such imposter syndrome, its awful

Same here. A few weeks into my new role and tired of feeling like a fraud!

I think I do put a lot of pressure on myself to know everything. There are other members of the team I can refer to. But I find it so hard when people I’m managing know more about things than I do. I worry that they wonder why I have been given the job!

I’m glad I’m not the only one in this position. It does help to know it’s not just me.

Good luck with it - I've just been made redundant so I'm looking for something new. I've got a few interviews coming up and all of them feature some aspect I'm not familiar with - my attitude is to focus on what I can bring to a team rather than sweating what I don't know and hopefully that will work.

@Whereisme yeah, why do we think we need to know everything?! I’m trying to take on a new attitude this week and determined to feel better about it. We can do this! We could do it before probably, we just didn’t know it lol.

It is not easy, I think we all feel at least a bit like this

But I find it so hard when people I’m managing know more about things than I do. I worry that they wonder why I have been given the job!

Have a think about, and get very clear, about your own role, which might be something like 'creating the environment in which your team can succeed'

What kind of questions are your team asking? If it's matter of facts or even policy then yes, talk them through the problem solving approach in order to let them work out things for themselves.

If it's a matter of advice or corporate policy then, yes, those are your responsibility, so you can undertake to find an answer.

I am v v grateful to the first really technical boss I had who would always start by asking me questions in response to any questions I asked them. I quickly learned to anticipate those questions and have answers ready, so that I only ever asked him questions he was really needed in order to find a solution. Nowadays, problem solving is considered my superpower at work: I'm still working through the questions I learned from him.

I am coming from the other side with being in a very experienced specialist team whose manager and their manager ( director) not having the knowledge the team has. This is not a problem for the team however the lack of managing is an issue. So what I am trying to say is, you are the manager so be the expert on managing rather than being the expert on the subject.

I am often in this position - I manage a team of people who are experts in their field and know far more than I do about their subjects. I think/hope they find it useful to have someone who isn't in the detail managing them - I always tell them that if they can't explain it to me in a way that I can understand, nobody else will understand it. I always defer to them on expertise though.

It takes time to gain confidence in a new leadership role and I think there’s a few myths needing busted. You don’t need to know everything just because you’re the boss. It’s perfectly ok (and admired) to be honest and say you don’t know, talk aloud with your thoughts, ask others for advice or go away and research it. I imagine this is what you would expect someone from your team to do if they were unsure rather than just wing it.

If possible I’d ask your employer if they would be willing to arrange a coach or mentor for you. Someone you can speak to who is independent and you can talk openly about where you feel less confident and get some support. Leadership skills are learned over time, they are not something you are born with. It’s in your employers best interests to provide the support too. Leaders who are confident in their abilities are said to be 20% productive. As well as having more engaged and motivated teams.

Good Luck! You were promoted for good reason, others believe in you, you need to find the belief in yourself.

Google what does a manager do. Really!
sounds silly but it gives you a different perspective. You aren’t there to know everything and be able to do everything you are there to manage the people and processes. The more you learn the more comfortable you will be with this, but you don’t have to know it all to be a great manager.

Ine example of what you’ll find by googling:
”Managers plan, organize, direct, and control resources to achieve specific goals. In planning, they set goals and determine the best way to achieve them.”

Why did you apply for the role and accept it if you are not confident you can do it? I just hope they didn't choose you over an internal applicant who had the knowledge and skills as well as potential for leadership. Anyway, I am sure you are very capable, just remember that the people who hired you thought so and if it doesn't work out you can always learn from the experience.

This is also me and all I can say is work hard at overcoming it; supportive boss is important, and fake your self belief. You have this job now deliver.

So when I’ve been the experienced team member, it’s really annoyed me when a manager who has less knowledge has avoided asking me and drawing on my expertise - it made me feel like they didn’t value me and it also resulted in them getting things wrong. So maybe rethink this.

One of the best managers I’ve ever come across had no experience in the field her team worked in.
But she was great at being a manager - working with her team to develop and empower them. She worked hard to network so if they came with a question she knew who/where to direct them to. She was fabulous at coaching, getting her team to reach answers by asking questions to get them there. She was strong strategically and able to work well with the senior management team which benefitted her team.
If you’re from a strategic background, use that to your benefit. It might well be a different approach to what people are used to at that organisation but have faith in the fact your employers obviously believe you can do the job else they won’t have hired you. I also think it’s ok to be honest with your team at times like this.

Fair point, but like others have said it’s difficult when you feel like an imposter.

Thank you for all your helpful replies. Definitely a lot for me to think about and digest.

@loverslept I hope they hired me for my experience and potential. You never really know how what a role will be like before you do it. It was a generic job description and I could have been put in several teams. I am now doubting myself even more!

If you aren’t actually my new manager (if so, hi!) then someone else here maybe is

im a highly technical old bod, postgraduate level education in a very odd specifically niche Discipline (probably less than a few hundred of us at any level in the uk)

my new manager came in at a ‘I know this field exists and Iknow it is complicated ‘ sort of level. Won the job over someone more like me. And you know what… she’s PERFECT for us. Asks questions , makes decisions and defers gracefully if it’s outside of what she knows.

i take a view that top level tech expertise and top level management knowledge won’t often come in the same package … so we learn to work together. I think my most oft repeated phrase when she apologises for not knowing something is ‘but you never need to know that… if you did, they could get rid of me and my team‘

@BillMasheen I’m not your manager as work in a different discipline 😊 However, thank you so much for your post! The advice you and others have given is really helping me to change my thinking. Hoping to go into the week feeling more confident!

So, you were hired to work in (manage) an industry you have no experience of. To manage a team of people who's job you have never done. And you are already struggling and trying to avoid being exposed by your colleagues and staff.

No wonder businesses and public services in this country are in a mess.

I’d highly recommend getting a coach, if you have any L&D/personal development budget it would be a great investment. This is a very common issue and should be easy to overcome with a few sessions.