A Call To Leadership

EP135: Harnessing the Power of Expertise, How to Lead and Succeed with Knowledge and Skill

• Dr. Nate Salah

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Welcome to another empowering Finish Strong Friday episode, where we continue to delve deeper into the various manifestations of power. In today's show, we explore the remarkable influence of expertise and its ability to captivate and motivate individuals. Discover practical ways to wield your expertise to unite people towards a common purpose and objective today!


Key Takeaways To Listen For

  • The demonstration of expertise and its impactful manifestation
  • Importance of knowing the level and power of your expertise
  • Pitfalls of having expert power
  • How to recognize your power of expertise as a leader
  • Elements that facilitate the growth of your expertise


Resources Mentioned In This Episode


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[00:00:00] Dr. Nate Salah
You actually have more influence than you believe. Here's the thing about expert power. Expert power is a doorway with your own unique expertise, and you are unique. No one else is you. No one else has the unique vision that you do. Hello my friend, and welcome to this Friday episode of A Call to Leadership. I'm Dr. Nate Salah, your host, so glad you're here. Every Friday we spend time together working on one tool for your leadership tool about just one. And so this is the middle, if you will, or close to the middle of a series on power and how power produces influence course. How leadership is the ability to leverage that influence into action, and that's just one way to describe it.

[00:00:43]
So we've talked about coercive power, reward, power. Legitimate power or the power of positioning. And if you haven't listened to those three first episodes, I encourage you to go back after this episode and listen in because they're foundational and they help to frame how we view power, both from the perspective of problems and power, ways that we perhaps can abuse it in ways that we can manifest it for positive change to help others along this shared path, this journey as we guide one another to better future states. So here we are and talking about the fourth method of power, and we're drawing on French and Raven's work back in the 1950s to start this foundational study. And then we'll talk more about other ones later. So French and Raven talked about one of my favorite mechanisms of power, one that we see all the time, one that we exert in many different ways.

[00:01:44]
It's the power of expertise. Your expertise or expert power has the ability to influence behavior to cause change. And you think about this expert power is not based on a role, it's not based on a reward, it's based on a skill. Based on knowledge, it's based on experience. And so your expertise based on the value it has in a certain context, whether in the marketplace, whether in a family, whether in a community, has an amount of power that can then transfer into influence, and that can guide people along their journey. And so the greater level of perceived value that expertise. The greater level of potential influence that you may have. Examples are all around us for this type of power. One of the most resonant ones, of course, is a doctor. A doctor has a certain level of expertise based on their what? Their knowledge, their skills, and their experience.

[00:02:48]
And so that will determine what you do with the recommendations and the suggestions that they make, or, If they simply provide a procedure. I'll give you an example. When I was young, I was living overseas and I was at the gym and getting ready to jump on a trampoline. Well, I jumped on the trampoline and guess what happened? I jumped and I landed on my arm and broke it in two places and dislocated it, right? I'm in a foreign country, of course I was born here in the US but I was in Israel at the time and I didn't know exactly what was going on. I was nine years old. And we got to the hospital and I'm holding my arm up. I'm like, ah, kind of hurts, but I'm kind of in shock. We get into the operating room, I don't have any real control. My mom comes and says, what is going on? The doctor says, Hey, we've gotta operate. Your son's arm is broken in two places. We're going to fix those breaks. And then the dislocation, we're gonna fix that as well. What does my mom say? My mom doesn't say.

[00:03:53]
Well, I'm not sure I trust that, right? She says, go ahead, perform the operation and get it done right. That physician has tremendous power based on expertise. Of course, there is positional power based on the role of the physician, but because the physician is an expert in that area, that physician then has tremendous control over the circumstances. Now, if that physician was say, perhaps knew, said, Hey, look, this is my first operation. My mom might be more hesitant because the experience, the skills, the knowledge may have not manifest in a way that satisfies her value proposition. Then if the physician says, This is my first time. However, an experienced physician will be in the room performing the operation, and I will be there to assist. Then guess what happens? Then? Her value proposition increases, influences her to say what? Okay, perform the operation. This can happen in many other ways. Sometimes you may be with in a physician's environment and you get a diagnosis that you're not comfortable with.

[00:05:03]
What do we do? Sometimes we ask for what a second opinion, right? So we ask another expert to give us another opinion because we're perhaps not satisfied with the current opinion. And when perhaps several experts bind together to provide a similar opinion, then we may then take that and it influences our behavior. In the accounting world. So I own an accounting and advisory practice. If you've been listening to the show, you know this. And so when people sit across from me in my office, I've been doing accounting and tax work for almost 30 years now, and so I, I help a lot of businesses and that's an end game. The accounting and tax force, we spend a lot of time on mission, vision, values, leadership, everything we talk about on this show, but accounting is one aspect of it, and I have an expertise in that area when someone comes into my office.

[00:05:53]
They want me to solve a problem. One of the first questions that I usually get asked is, how long have I been, do have I been doing this? Right? Why? Because people normally associate the longevity of your work with a level of expertise. In other words, if you've been doing something for a certain period of time, then you've developed greater skill, greater knowledge, greater ability. That usually is the case. Not always, but it's usually the case, especially if you've developed. Expertise over time. Some people say that an expert takes about 10,000 hours, right? To become an expert. Whether that's a hundred percent true or not, is irrelevant. The point is, is that it's a time and time in the saddle thing, right? It's a time where you have to continue to develop your skill, develop your knowledge, develop. Your discipline. And as you develop your discipline, you have more and more possible influence based on the power of your expertise when that influence is valued in whatever context, either marketplace or whatever.

[00:06:57]
So this is a very important power base, and this is a power base that we must not underestimate is the power of your expertise. Don't underestimate that. You say, Nate, I don't know if I have expertise in this area. Right. Well, let's ask you this. Have you developed knowledge, scalability over time? Are you respected among your peers? That's another question to ask if you're respected among your peers. In other words, if your work is valued among your peers, then I would suggest that you may have developed expertise. And it doesn't happen overnight. If you're just getting started in an area, you're not an expert and you are still developing that expert power so that expert power won't exist in the manifestation of the form that you will later.

[00:07:47]
I'll give you an example of that. When I started working on my PhD, I was what we call a neophyte, right? I was just a student getting things going. In fact, even when I graduated, I was just introduced in, introduced into the academy. I was a brand new doctor of philosophy, right? I was not an expert in the general areas that I was going to continue to grow in, especially in the areas of my research, because my research, although I had a high level of knowledge, And skill. That was only several years of study, but every single year that I increased my knowledge, increased my skill. Then my expertise level increases as well. So for example, a scholar in the same space as me, who I've learned from over the years, maybe it was written 20, 30 books on the same aspects of leadership, whether they be visionary leadership or vision execution, and so on.

[00:08:42]
That scholar has a higher level expertise than I do, which means they have more expert power, which means they have more influence in that area, and that's the way it should be because they have earned it. That's the thing about expert power. Expert power requires you to earn it. It's solely based on your earnings. You can get legitimate power, power your position. You may not have earned it, but you have to earn it. But because you get to earn it, you get to believe in it and you get to own it. Now there are some pitfalls to expert power. One of those pitfalls is people can abuse their expertise. They can become very close-minded to learning, and I've seen this before, you may have too, where someone believes that they, they have amassed so much expertise in area that they are the world's foremost scholar or knowledge person in an area.

[00:09:35]
That may be true, but there's always room to learn. And as soon as we close the door on learning, as soon as we become close-minded and narrow focused and unteachable, it really closes the door to any type of growth that we may have. And then because we've closed the door to growth, we've closed the door to helping people in a new way because the world is constantly changing. Friend, you know this. The world is changing in such a way that there is always something new to learn. In fact, the more I learn. The more I realize how much I don't know, even having advanced degrees, I realize that, man, my knowledge base is so infinitesimal in relationship to the possibilities of knowledge in this world, not letting alone the universe, right?

[00:10:26]
We know so little about the grandeur of this amazing creation, and so there's a humility. It comes alongside of realizing that I know very little about all of the beauty and all of the majesty that we get to participate in growing and experiencing. So having a teachable heart, continuing to learn even in your discipline, even in your area of expertise, continues to fuel the innovative, the creative mind, and give you more and more resources to what help others. Right. Aim for greatness. That's what we call aiming for Greatness, is serving others in such a way that pushes progress forward, that gives us a deeper meaning and value and purpose in relationship to our shared causes. And so as you develop your expertise, think about where you are and, and that expert power.

[00:11:26]
You may be in a, you may be in a position to where you're just realizing, you know what, Nate? I am realizing that I have value in the marketplace because of my skills, my knowledge, my abilities, and I'm beginning to utilize that to influence others. You may be in a room where you feel as though you are insignificant, but because of your expertise, you actually have more influence than you believe. Then here's the thing about expert power. Expert power is a doorway you see with your own unique expertise, and you are unique. No one else is you. No one else has the unique vision that you do. No one else has the unique abilities that you do. You have a very unique skillset set because you are only one person, and every one person on this planet has a unique signature of how they view the world and how they move forward.

[00:12:18]
So as leaders, as experts, because when you take someone along a journey as an expert to a better future state, to solve a current problem, to illuminate a present opportunity, What you're doing is you're saying this, I am providing you access through a doorway, which you have no access through. Otherwise you say, Nate, that seems a little arrogant to say that I'm the only one that can provide access to this pathway. Well, friend, it's true. And the reason why it's true is because no one takes anyone through the exact same journey in the exact same way. Now, there may be. Extreme similarities, but there are nuances that are unique to you. And so that isn't arrogance. That's simply saying, I have the expertise that can take you along this journey.

[00:13:09]
I provide you access to a place you couldn't go otherwise. And so because of this, let's see if it's a best fit based on my unique value proposition as an expert in this area and your desired destination. We illuminate the better future state. We share where we wanna go, and based on our expertise, how we've gotten there before, how we've helped others get there before, and then invite people to join us alongside one another in this journey. That is one aspect of how we develop expert power. I'll give you another example of it. I just started reading a book by a gentleman named Alex Hermo, and if you haven't heard of Alex, he's on YouTube. He's got some wonderful books. He is written. And I just started reading one of his writings, which was recommended to me, and he's built seven, eight figure companies and he has a high level expertise in scaling and building amazing organizations, right.

[00:14:04]
And so as I'm listening to his story on Audible, he's sharing his expertise, his skills, his knowledge, his abilities, his fumbles, his foibles, his challenges, his missteps, right? By the way, expertise isn't always just grand slams every time, right? Expertise is, man, I have failed miserably, and I've added these failures to my playbook. It's taught me how to pivot and grow and manifest new ways to achieve what I never thought possible in the first place. Even on the show, if you've been listening to the show, you hear me talk about, man, I have made some major blunders, whether it's near bankruptcy, having trouble in my marriage with my raising a teenager, and so on and so forth.

[00:14:46]
Friendships, business, right? Life, my faith journey, you name it, I have missed the mark in certain places. Hey, when I'm a young man standing in front of a judge, like, judge, please don't lock me up. These are mistakes, major mistakes. However, those major mistakes are part of the shaping part of the journey and part of the development of expertise in an area. So embrace the experience. Share the experience. I'm listening to this book and he's talking about the mistakes he's made as he's built these companies, but he's also sharing, Hey, look, I'm an expert in this area. I've developed these systems, developed these processes. I've developed people. I've developed organizations, I know what I'm talking about, right?

[00:15:32]
Guess what happens? The trust level goes up because the expertise is demonstrated, which is of value to the reader because they have a desire to understand that. For me, my main purpose is to learn more. So then I can what? Turn around and give it to you as a student of leadership, right? So there's tremendous value. In understanding first know thyself. You've gotta know who you are. You've gotta know how you are of value. Don't hold back. Don't think for a moment that you don't have value somewhere. You say, Nate, I'm not an expert in many areas. Develop it. Develop the expertise in an area that you find of value that the marketplace finds of value.

[00:16:21]
Own it. Believe in it. Begin to work into that spirit and be patient in this world today. Man, we are so impatient, including myself, right? Instant gratification. I mean, we can have so much at the fingertips, right? If your website doesn't open up in a matter of what, two seconds, three seconds, people just close it down and start over. Maybe a different website, right? We're so impatient with our time. Some things just take time. Expertise takes time to develop, and it is so worth it as you develop your expertise, whether you are developing expertise as a neurosurgeon, whether you're developing expertise as a janitorial supervisor, whether you're developing expertise as an elementary school teacher, or a dental hygienist, or an architect, wherever you are developing your expertise. Develop it in such a way that you find value in it, that you find purpose and meaning in it, and then that you can turn around and share that expertise in such a way that you understand the power of expertise when it's valued, and then manifest it to influence action to help people along their way.

[00:17:42]
Well, my friend, that's a little bit about expert power. Add that one to your repertoire. Expert power is so valuable, so important. Make sure that you share your expertise with others. Make sure you believe in your expertise. Make sure you develop your expertise and live it. Well, my friend, we did it again. I'm so glad you joined me on this episode of A Call to Leadership. If you've been with me on the show listening in, you'll know this. But if you're new, you may not know that I created a free course. For you that you don't need to provide an email address. You don't need to go anywhere. But to stay right here in the podcast, I created the very first six episodes of the podcast because I wanted you to have the kind of value that you need to take advantage of to thrive as a leader. So if you haven't done that yet, listen to episodes one through six. I'll see you on the next episode. I'm Dr. Nate Salah and this is A Call to Leadership.

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