You got the job. So why does leadership feel so hard?

You worked hard to become an expert. Then you got promoted, and the skills that built your career started working against you. Here's what's happening, and what to do about it.

For most people who've built careers as subject matter experts, extensive knowledge is currency. It builds credibility, earns respect and opens doors, so of course you lead with it. You're the person who gets things done, solves problems and has the answers others rely on. But leading as the expert signals to your team that you already have the answers and their knowledge and judgement don't count. That pattern beds in quickly, shaping how your team thinks, contributes and works together long after those first months. Leadership asks you to lean on your expertise less.

You are one person. Your team is many.

Your team brings eight, twelve, twenty people's worth of knowledge: domain expertise, stakeholder relationships, tacit knowledge built across years. Collectively, they hold more relevant intelligence than any one person at the top ever could. But when teams see their leader as the authority, people self-censor. What doesn't get said moves offline, into side conversations that never reach the people who need to hear them.

It's not a you thing

Stepping into leadership, most people inherit a structure built around the leader as the central decision-maker. Information flows up rather than across, with recognition systems that reward individual contribution over collective output. These structures concentrate knowledge at the top and make it harder for teams to think and speak up.

Leading differently in that environment takes more than good intentions. It means actively changing how information moves, how decisions get made and who gets credit for what. Some of that is personal: how you show up, what you model, what you reward. Some of it is structural: the meetings you redesign, the reporting lines you push back on, the recognition systems you challenge. Both matter, and structures rarely change unless someone decides to change them.

Stick with it

As a new leader, shifting well-worn dynamics can feel uncomfortable. You start leading differently and it doesn't feel natural yet. You ask questions where you used to give answers. Your team watches you, trying to read the change. You second-guess yourself.

That disorientation isn't a sign you're doing it wrong. It's what real transition feels like from the inside. The anchor during that period isn't your role, which is changing. It's your purpose. Staying connected to why you lead, rather than retreating to what you know, is what carries you through.

The reward

Leaders who make this shift consistently describe the same thing: they feel less exhausted, not more exposed. Decision quality improves because it draws on more than one person's view. Teams grow because people feel like genuine contributors. The organisation benefits because knowledge stops pooling at the top and starts moving.

For those who built their careers on expertise, this is a particular kind of strength to grow into. Not the kind that proves what you know. The kind that unlocks what everyone around you knows, and builds something none of you could have built alone.

Three things to try

Ask before you answer. When someone brings you a problem, try "What's the real challenge here for you?" before offering your view. Do it consistently and notice what starts to change in how your team brings things to you.

Redesign one meeting. Pick the meeting where you do most of the talking and restructure it so the team does. Change the agenda format, open with a question, give people time to contribute before you weigh in.

Move the credit outward. When work lands well, name the people whose thinking made it happen. Publicly, specifically, consistently. Teams that feel seen as contributors think harder and speak up more.

At Nudge Leadership, we work with senior leaders and the organisations they lead, unpacking what's personal, what's systemic and how to make change. If this resonates, we'd love to hear from you.

References

Bridges, W. & Bridges, S. (2017). Transitions: Making sense of life's changes (3rd ed.). Da Capo Press.

Bungay Stanier, M. (2016). The coaching habit: Say less, ask more & change the way you lead forever. Toronto, ON: Box of Crayons Press

Isaacs, W. (1999). Dialogue: The art of thinking together. Crown Business.

McKinsey & Company & LeanIn.Org. (2024). Women in the workplace: 10th anniversary report. McKinsey & Company.

Lawrence, P. (2014). Leading Change: How Successful Leaders Approach Change Management. Kogan Page.

Schein, E. (2013). Humble inquiry: The gentle art of asking instead of telling. Berrett-Koehler.

Woolley, A. & Gupta, P. (2024). Understanding collective intelligence: Investigating the role of collective memory, attention, and reasoning processes. Perspectives on Psychological Science.