Should leaders be able to do their team's work—or is that missing the point entirely? In this episode, Susie and James unpack a question that comes up more often than you'd think: what’s the role of expertise in leadership, and where does it get in the way?
From executives who feel pressure to know every detail, to newly promoted managers who struggle to let go of their old job, this conversation explores the emotional and practical tension of leading people whose work you can’t (and maybe shouldn’t) do. They also share real examples of what happens when expectations clash—and how trust, clarity, and curiosity can be even more powerful than hands-on skill.
Key Takeaways from This Episode:
- Why great leadership doesn’t require doing your team’s job.
- How to shift from execution to elevation when you’re promoted.
- What to do when your boss expects answers you don’t have (yet).
Join the Conversation:
Have you ever led a team doing work you’ve never done yourself? Or struggled to let go of work you once did? Tell us how you navigated the shift.
CONNECT WITH SUSIE:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok/
CONNECT WITH JAMES:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/capps/
[00:00:03] Welcome to the Quick Take Podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Susie Tomenchok. And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today. Hey, Quicksters. I'm Susie along with James. How are you, James? Good, good, good. I'm really good.
[00:00:30] I'm going to throw out a topic for today and it's about should leaders be able to do their direct reports jobs? Oh, that's a great topic. One that I think is highly debatable or up for debate in a lot of places and a lot of cases. Yeah, I have some pretty strong opinions about that.
[00:00:49] Yeah, I agree. I think it depends is the answer. And I think of one example where I had a team that I was working with and the team thought that their boss should be able to do their job. And the leader was like, can you help them understand that I don't need to understand the nuts and bolts because my role is to help influence for them, get their story out,
[00:01:12] help develop them in a way to show what the impact of their work does and how it plugs into the broader company. And so it's interesting because she said they really resented her for not understanding like the pivot table and understanding where they pull their data from. She was too high for that. No, I get it. And I think where this stems from is that we have all or not everybody, but there are a lot of jobs.
[00:01:39] And maybe some of the jobs you've had early in your career where your coworkers can pitch in for you, can cover your shift, can do the work. Can you pick this up? Because I don't have capacity. And when push comes to shove, your boss can step in and do that also. There is that role and those types of jobs where that person is the superhero of that function.
[00:02:00] But I think that that is really the minority of jobs or roles that certainly I would suspect of our listeners and maybe in the ecosystems that you and I circle that that is not the case. But the fact remains that many of us do come up through those entry-level jobs, maybe come in through those careers where you do have that mindset that my boss should do my job. Yeah. I have a guy that I met. He's a VP level, oversees a big part of the organization.
[00:02:30] And when I asked him what he loves, he says, I love it when things break. And I said, well, tell me more. He goes, well, then I handle, I'm kind of like the hot seat where I'm answering all the questions and I'm resolving everything. Right. So interesting. And I said, well, how do you think that makes your people feel? And he was like, well, they know that I have the ability to do that. But to your point, that's not the answer.
[00:02:54] That comes from a place of your ego is telling you, I'm the best at this, so I'm going to jump in. Right. And so give that opportunity. That's when it didn't make sense. The skill or the space that I always have come from is really that servant leadership mindset where you lead with humility. You leave from behind there for a team building capacity. I always said I am an overpaid administrative assistant here to make your job easier. Oh, I love that. That's a great frame.
[00:03:22] I've always been very humble about my poor programming skills and state that I simply cannot do your job, but I can do the things that you describe. And look, there are always going to be people who think that I should be able to do their job or that like to know that they are smarter than me. But at the end of the day, I'm confident in the role that I play and I'm comfortable communicating that. And I think that that's the best you can do as a leader.
[00:03:46] Be an observer to see where you can support them instead of being like a jumping in and making that happen because you shouldn't be able to do that on a whim. Well, and I think the challenge comes from two. Let's talk about a situation where you obviously have a leader who is debatably can or should they be able to do their people's job and that whole interesting dynamic. The other dynamic, though, is somebody who gets promoted and can and has done their job should they continue to do that job.
[00:04:15] And that dynamic, I think, happens more often than not and also runs into the same challenges, which is consider the situation where somebody is promoted and had done their direct reports job. They can't probably do their job five years after that promotion, 10 years after that promotion. You know, what does that look like? And so then you're asking that question. How do they get away from that situation and solve for it?
[00:04:38] It's interesting because I think people don't recognize that they have to make that shift into that new role so that they can recast their role and responsibility and what theirs are. And because they're so close to it, they remember what they didn't enjoy doing. So there's a little bit of like they feel bad making them start doing that. So it's such an interesting dynamic emotionally because there's a little bit of imposter syndrome, I guess. Yep. Now you're leading the group.
[00:05:08] Well, all those things aside, but at the end of the day, the issue here is you get caught up in deciding whether or not you should be able to do their job. Your direct reports think that, you think that. I always tell people that go through that transition that I'm going to take away your keyboard. And as a developer that is cutting off their arms and saying, look, you are now a leader and you can no longer code. Yeah. You no longer have a keyboard. You can't even get involved. Not only can you not do their job because I'm not allowing you to because of your title.
[00:05:37] Now you physically can no longer do that. Then helps substantiate and instantiate the reality that you can't do your direct reports job. Yeah. And sometimes people need that demarc. You need that clarity around that to say, no, there is a line here and that it's not something we should even worry about. Well, I'm going to tell you about another client. The boss, the guy, I'll just call him Gary just because that's fun.
[00:06:00] Gary has the ability to really understand all the nuances of the business and has a really good capacity for details. And so one of his reports, James, no, I shouldn't use James. I'll use John. John doesn't have the knack for knowing all the details. So Gary has an expectation that when he asked John a question, he better know the details within his direct reports role. It is an interesting balance.
[00:06:27] It's not that John should jump into those roles and be able to do it, but John better understand enough because the expectation of Gary is he can answer the questions like that. What that comes down to is just a mismatch of roles and responsibilities. You're not clear on who should be doing that job or you had the wrong person, wrong seat, if you will. In that case, the leader, Gary, wants to be able to do John's job.
[00:06:51] That's a completely different disaster at the end of the day, but still comes back to the same issue and the need to be clear on what and how much of your job should or your direct reports job should you be able to do. I would suspect that our listeners will question that from industry to industry. And I think it does differ from role to role.
[00:07:13] But I do think that having clear expectations, having clarity around that and being humble and honest about the fact that you can and can't do certain things goes a long way towards creating the right kind of conversation.
[00:07:25] Yeah, and I think that to answer what John should do in that situation is really reframe to Gary what his role is to the people that work for him and that if he wants that information, then he needs to give him time because he can't just jump right in. That's a good, you've got to set the expectations there. Yeah. The bottom line here is you shouldn't know all the details.
[00:07:52] You should have trust in the people that work for you and be really cognizant of how deep you're going because you may need to lift yourself up. I agree with you. And I will say that I do have a bias there in that I do and have managed software developers, infrastructure people, technology people my entire career. And I've never been the best or the smartest person in the room. And I've always been very proud of that, that I feel like if I'm the smartest person in the room, I'm in the wrong room.
[00:08:20] So I have fostered a system and a framework and an approach around that. But I still think the research shows that. I think anecdotally I've seen that. And I think that generally speaking, you are more than capable as a leader and can be very successful as a leader when you can't do the job of your directs. Yeah. I guess the replacement is curiosity. Ask good questions so that you can draw it out of them because that's what builds that connection and that trust. Yep. Hunter's Hunter agree.
[00:08:52] Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Quick Take, where we talk about the questions that are on the minds of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind. You can find us on LinkedIn, YouTube, or whatever nerdy place on the internet you find your podcasts. All the links you really need are in the show notes.