Managing employees who are more experienced than you can be challenging. It really can make one feel awkward to manage people who have more experience, whether it’s in terms of tenure, experience, age or specialised expertise. This feeling could initially feel weird but it doesn’t need to impose on our relationship or performance. Your staff members want a smooth relationship with you. They want to feel respected and supported. They want to be successful and they want to be on a winning team.
The first thing you need to do is put your ego aside. The team member is more experienced than you and you need to acknowledge and accept that. The faster you do it, the easier the process will be. Letting go of ego, means realising that you will need help from team members and that they know something that you don’t. But that shouldn’t be a problem since both work for the same organisation.
Your objective is to make the company and your products better and not to see who is more knowledgeable and experienced. Even though you can’t compete with the team in terms of knowledge and experience, you can compete with them in terms of hard work and passion.
Even though you are less experienced than some team members, others in the team will still look up to you and emulate your behaviour. So you should lead by example and work hard and with a passion which will show that you are ready to overcome the lack of experience with hard work. This will also help experienced team members to respect you as a leader.
Be humble
As a leader your mix of knowledge, values, skills and experience got you to where you are now. Your staff may be more experienced or have specialised expertise than you in some ways but that doesn’t diminish what you bring to the table.
You should acknowledge it and make it known to the others that you are aware that these people are more knowledgeable than you. This will show humility on your side, since they will see that you are not afraid to speak about your shortcomings and that you won’t hide your lack of knowledge in certain aspects, so that they too will admit their shortcomings.
Team members who are more experienced than you will respect you more since you acknowledged their expertise in public. Since you lack experience in the field, you will need to ask for advice and feedback from team members, especially those who are more experienced. If you have an industry expert in your team then you should use his or her expertise.
Advice
Before implementing a change, you should get the advice from a more experienced team member.
They have the experience about similar situations and will be able to give advice and you could take that knowledge as a learning experience.
If your staff member resists your authority or undermines your decisions treat it the same way you would any other action or interpersonal issue — by giving a feedback and seeking their perspective. While respect can be earned through expertise, age or experience, it’s better cultivated through relationship-building. Work to build strong working relationships with authenticity, trust, openness and a sense of shared purpose.
Remember that the qualities that make great managers often have nothing to do with subject matter or technical expertise. Effective managers care about wielding their power responsibly because they recognise they have significant influence over the quality of life at work of the staff. They will guide, support and advocate.
They cultivate healthy team dynamics and culture, give kind and direct feedback, and seek perspective. Having mastery over a certain field is a never-ending endeavour. You can get close to knowing everything, but you may never fully get there. So when you’re working with a more experienced team member, find ways to challenge them to grow further.
Maybe they’re stuck in the comfort zone of their knowledge and you seem to see a blind spot that they could fix. If you can help them identify this blind spot and push them to overcome it, they will be grateful to you.
Behave like a leader
Even though there’s a team member in your team who has more experience than you, don’t forget that you got picked for a reason. Don’t be afraid of the role you have been given and begin to behave like a leader. You’re in this position because a higher- up saw your leadership potential and placed you in that role.
Think of the experienced team member as an additional challenge for your managerial role and style. Make sure that you treat it as a learning experience. Who knows how many times in your career you will need to lead a member who is more experienced than you? If you are afraid by the mere thought that you will need to lead a more experienced team member, remember to keep the numbers in mind.
This will pull you out from the subjective, fear-induced state into a rational and logical state of mind. Then you will focus on the numbers in front of you. This means that you look at that team member’s objectives, goals, and key performance indicators and rate their effectiveness and productivity according to the numbers, not their years of experience. This will help you stay calm and collected when leading your team members.
Team’s success
Lastly, focus on the team’s success. When you have an employee who is more experienced than you on the team, you need to remember that they are only just a piece of the puzzle — you need all the other team members to help the entire team meet their goals and to positively contribute to the company.
The team’s success comes first. It’s vital to structure the workload and employees to ensure that the entire team succeeds. If the team succeeds, individual members will succeed as well.
Even though managing an employee who is more experienced than you is a challenge, it can still be done if you follow these eight tips. If you need more information on how to lead a more experienced team member, you should first learn how to lead yourself better.
