What to Do When You’re in the Pilot’s Seat... but Still Googling the Acronyms

Leading Beyond Your Expertise: the Power of Influence

⏱️ ~ 10 mins read or 1 cup of tea

Beatrice Siyanbola (Energy Professional) at an Arizon Network event.

While leading the start of shift meetings in the first few weeks in my plant Operations Supervisor role, I would tell my team that one of our key actions for the day was to ‘turn on’ one of the three production trains.

I made it sound like there was a switch on the wall to start up the process train. And if you’re familiar with hydrocarbon processing, you’ll be aware that a unit or train start-up is anything but a simple ‘switch’. In my site, it was hours of column level management, unit conditioning and backfilling. It was a gradual ramp-up and eventually operations stabilisation. 

Whenever I would catch myself saying ‘turn on’, I would frantically correct myself and say ‘sorry, ramp up’. Every time I said it, I was giving my team another reason to think I wasn’t up to the task. Well at least that’s how it felt.

Here I was with only two and a half years experience in the Oil and Gas industry post my chemical engineering degree, with no actual frontline operational experience. I now had the responsibility of coordinating the daily activities of a group that had an average of about 20 years plant operations experience. 

 “Lol, who thought this was a good idea ?”

 “I’m in over my head. This is way beyond me.”

This would pop into my mind every now and again and went on for months. I spent a lot of time experiencing imposter syndrome. I believed that my inexperience in gas operations meant that the value I could bring was minimal.

 …

If you pause to think about some of the great leaders around you and draw a line tracing their journeys to their current leadership roles and also connecting this with the teams and processes they lead, the line is rarely straight. 

The belief that a leader must be the most knowledgeable person in the room is not just outdated, it’s limiting. In fact, it’s one of the biggest myths holding people back from stepping into leadership roles and from becoming effective leaders. I have this conversation with friends every week.

In today’s complex, fast-moving world, having all the answers is impossible. Even the sharpest subject matter expert can't keep pace with every new tool, shift, or trend. Leadership isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about knowing how to get the team to be the best version of themselves -  how to align a team, build trust, and create clarity in the chaos. That’s what separates good leaders from great ones.

Why Influence Beats Expertise

Let’s get one thing clear: expertise matters and it is imperative for a leader to have a solid understanding of the team’s activities. But it’s not the whole story; not even close. Expertise can solve a handful of problems. Influence can align a team to solve hundreds.

The most effective leaders today are often leading designers, sales managers, engineers, analysts, or marketers without ever having done those jobs themselves. And they’re not pretending to be experts either. They succeed by creating the environment for the expertise of others to flourish.

They ask smart questions. They listen and listen. They cut through complexity and bring focus. And most importantly, they create an environment where people can do their best work and are safe enough to make mistakes because they’ve taken smart risks.

You don’t follow them because they have a killer CV. You follow them because they have presence, clarity, and credibility. They make people feel seen. They help people think sharper. They move things forward.

John C. Maxwell, in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, puts it simply:

"Leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less.” 

That means the true power of leadership isn’t tied to knowledge or position, it’s tied to your ability to move others forward. 

So what does it take to lead well outside your comfort zone? What are some skills and behaviours that strengthen your influence?

Image source: Shutterstock

Skills and Behaviours That Actually Matter

You need a different kind of toolkit, one built on curiosity, humility, and people smarts.

1. Stay curious. The best leaders ask more than they answer. They approach new topics with a learner’s mindset. They’re not afraid to say, “I don’t know, walk me through it.” That curiosity builds credibility, not weakness. It also helps them spot patterns and possibilities others deeply involved in the process might miss.

2. Listen like it matters (because it does). Listening is a superpower and not nearly enough leaders use it. Deep listening means making people feel heard and respected. It opens doors, builds trust, and reveals what’s going on below the surface.

3. Translate complexity into clarity. In fast-moving teams, ambiguity is everywhere. Strong leaders are skilled translators. They take the mess, the detail, the jargon, and the moving parts, and help people understand what matters most. They create alignment and direction even when the picture isn't clear yet.

4. Make the call when it counts. Just because you’re not the expert doesn’t mean you dodge decisions. Leaders synthesise input, challenge assumptions, and ultimately make the tough calls. That means doing enough homework to ask the right questions and weigh trade-offs. You don’t need to be the most intelligent person in the room, just the most decisive. That’s your job.

Having said this, since in reality you shouldn’t be involved in all tiny details, there are also many decisions within your team’s activities that can and should be made by your team. And this is where empowering your team comes in. This can sometimes be tough in high risk activities or environments like on Oil and Gas assets given the potential consequences of wrong decisions, but a healthy balance can still be achieved. 

So, empower your team, but make the call when it counts.

5. Build real trust. Forget titles. Influence flows through trust. That’s what gets people to go the extra mile, speak up honestly, and collaborate across silos.

Stephen R. Covey, in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, said it best: 

"Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”

And in leadership, trust isn’t just glue, it’s fuel. It drives commitment, candor, and collaboration.

6. Make your past experiences your superpower. Oftentimes, we go into new roles and unfamiliar territory focused on the unknowns and on the mountain of new concepts to learn, forgetting our own existing knowledge and experience can be useful. Remember, no matter how close they may get, no one else will have had the same combination of experiences you’ve had during the times you’ve had them. 

In my Operations Supervisor role, I had prior understanding of what targets were most important for the plant - having managed plant performance management previously. I also had useful contacts from previous roles outside the facility. These became extremely useful in helping my team deliver on daily targets but also in supporting team members’ individual development plans. Leveraging on those relationships then in turn helped build trust with my team.

These aren’t “soft skills.” They’re survival skills. In a world where no one can know it all, leadership becomes less about control and more about connection. 

In many groups, this trust can only be earned by showing integrity and delivering on commitments you make. And no, I’m not referring to commitments to make to Senior Leaders about your KPIs, but those you make to your teams and other similar stakeholders.

 …

Leading Without Pretending

Saying “lead beyond your expertise” is easy, but this is what doing it looks like in practice:

• Build the right team and let them own it. Your job isn’t to do the detailed work. It’s to set the vision, the systems, remove roadblocks. That means assembling and training up strong people and trusting them with real ownership.

• Ask better questions, not to look smart, but to unlock thinking. Instead of giving answers, dig deeper. What’s behind this challenge? What haven’t we considered? Questions like these push teams to stretch their thinking and surface better ideas.

• Be honest about your limits. There’s power in saying, “I’m not familiar with that, walk me through it.” When you’re open about what you don’t know, you earn respect. You also make space for others to lead.

• Zoom out. Experts tend to zoom in. Leaders need to zoom out. Focus on outcomes, not just tactics. Connect the dots. Keep people aligned on what matters most - the impact, not just the process.

• Challenge with humility. You don’t need to be an expert to ask, “Why are we doing it this way?” Leaders should challenge assumptions, not from ego, but from a desire to get to the best solution. Smart teams respect that.

 …

When Expertise Fails

Leadership isn’t immune to failure, especially when it leans too hard on expertise without acknowledging knowledge gaps.

One of the clearest examples? George Shaheen and Webvan. Shaheen was a star in the consulting world, having led Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). But in 1999, he stepped into a new role as CEO of Webvan, an ambitious online grocery delivery startup.

Despite his consulting pedigree, Shaheen had no real understanding of the grocery industry. And that gap mattered, a lot. Webvan expanded too fast, poured money into warehouses and infrastructure, and couldn’t deliver on its core promise. The business model wasn’t sustainable. Logistics were a nightmare. Customer expectations went unmet. By 2001, the company collapsed into bankruptcy, burning through over $1 billion in the process.

Without listening, humility, and a grasp of operational realities, even the most impressive situations can lead to disasters. Deep expertise in one field doesn’t automatically translate into effective leadership elsewhere. But with the right behaviours, you can unlock real influence and build empowered teams.

So What Makes a Great Leader Today?

The future of leadership isn’t about being a know-it-all. It’s about being a connector, a challenger, a translator, a guide. It’s about making people better, not by showing off what you know, but by bringing out the best in what they know.

If you’re feeling stretched, uncertain, or a little out of your depth, that’s not a red flag. That’s the job.

 …

Now going back to the example of my Operation Supervisor role, I ended up doing it for over two and half years (and successfully). And from that experience, here is a summary of my key takeaways about leading beyond your expertise.

• It’s still your responsibility to set a direction/ vision for the team, but you’ll likely not initially be best placed to come up with detailed step-by-step plans on how to get to that specific result. It’ll be a team effort - embrace it and learn!

• Think of it as an opportunity to empower your teams - to make leaders.

• Identify and apply what you do have/ bring: a new way of thinking, insights from previous roles into your new role, etc . 

• Find a balance between openness to learning how things currently work and bringing in a new perspective and influencing how the team currently functions.

• Remember that you were put there by people leaders who are aware of your specific experience gaps, but believed that your complementary experience and demonstrated behaviours qualified you as being fit to lead that team. 

So the next time you think, “I don’t have the answer or what it takes,” ask this instead:

"Do I already have the answer somewhere in my team or can I bring the right people together, build trust, and move us forward?"

Because that… ‘not perfect expertise’ can truly enhance your leadership and how you’re experienced as a leader.

 …

Do you have any thoughts on this? Leave a comment or send me a message - let's talk.

Stay tuned for more thoughts and musings from Beatrice Siyanbola about Leadership, Early Careers and the Energy Industry!