Skip to main content

I need to be an expert

 

Storytelling isn’t worth a penny if the people you’re speaking to don’t believe you. You may be the most eloquent speaker of all-time and a master at pontificating your position, but if someone thinks you’re full of it, you’re going nowhere. For me, it isn’t about credibility or trustworthiness, because I have those attributes with my coworkers. Instead, it’s really about knowing what I’m talking about and having the expertise to do my job well.

Currently, as Director of Business Development & Real Estate, I have the expertise to command the business development side of the house, but I lack the knowledge in real estate. Expertise takes time to build (Whalen, 2007, p. 124). Although I don’t intend to get my real estate license or become a broker, I know I need to step up my game and take a deeper dive into the subject. Here is how I intend to do that and improve my expertise.

I need to take the time to focus and study the subject of real estate a lot more closely than I have. Being a subject matter expert in other subjects has helped me with other tasks in my career and I know it would help here. I will start by taking an hour a day to set aside for review of real estate contracts, processes and procedures so that I don’t need to constantly reference those anymore. I will lean on my resident real estate experts more and setup time once a week to cover real estate specific tasks. I won’t go so far as to say I will take a real estate class, but I will investigate real estate webinars or online training sessions that can give me short bursts of information I can use as knowledge moving forward. I will be more confident in my knowledge so that I have the appearance to my coworkers that I know what I’m doing. Of course, having the knowledge will breed more confidence, but I need to focus on what people see of me and thus, I need to appear like I’m an expert, even if I’m still learning. Finally, I need to ask for support from my family. They’re already very supportive of my position at my real job, but they also support me with my time as City Commissioner for our town, vice-president for our neighborhood association and as I work hard every morning and night for my master’s degree. I need to ask them yet again to help support me as I learn more about my role so that I can excel at it.

To increase my expertise in my workplace, I need to continue to be authentic and show people who I am. An effective leader’s life story is authentic, something that comes from inner conviction (Denning, 2011, p. 97). Having the ability to learn more about my craft is a fun and exciting thing to do. I feel like I’m doing well, but I must do more. Through this action plan, I can be more credible with my teams and we in turn can become more effective in our jobs.

References

Denning, S. (2011). The leader's guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative (2nd ed.). San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass.

Whalen, D.J. (2007). The Professional Communications Toolkit. SAGE Publications.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tipping Point

  Tipping Point There are many ways to describe how a lot of little things can add up to make a big deal. Historically speaking, the city of Detroit, Michigan, where I have spent a lot of my time as an adult, experienced “white flight” in the 1960s, where white families reached a tipping point and moved to the suburbs when black families moved into predominantly white neighborhoods. But from a career or work perspective, it can be really easy to let small, almost meaningless things cause us to reach out tipping point, or snap. “Emotional intelligence (EI) is a convenient phrase with which to focus attention on the underlying emotional components of human talent” ( Boyatzis , 2006, p. 124).  As I continue to learn and grow more into the leader I know I can be, EI continues to be at the forefront of many discussion I have with people. Most recently, I experienced a tipping point at work where I was frustrated with the lack of effort by our legal team in getting back to me wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lessons from Obolensky

  Obolensky Asks Questions In chapter 1, Obolensky (2010) asks three reflective questions and if I were able to respond, I’d say a number of things related to leadership over time. I strive to learn from those around me, but that doesn’t always end up being the case. Most of the time I’m open to other’s knowledge about subjects and some of that rubs off on me. As is the case with leaders, I’ve had a lot of them, and some were great and others not so much. But my attitude has changed about the leaders in my life. I’ve learned to understand which ones I can align with, which has improved my overall career experience. My attitude towards leaders has changed directly because of my understanding of how leaders have impacted my life. I want to be around empowering and transformational leaders, but also those that use situational awareness and are authentic. These attributes are what I find that influences me to be more successful.   I’d like to tell you a story about my grandp...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Strengths and Weaknesses

  My Distinctive Strengths I feel like a lot of what I do I do really well. When I put my mind to it, I believe I can do whatever I want. I know that I’m well organized, I’m a great communicator, I’m someone that recognizes strengths in other people and I’m also great at building people up. My Potential Strengths I know I can do better in some areas, but certain things prevent me from accomplishing them. Namely, if I don’t already have work in my queue, I’m really not that interested in adding it. This also adds to a lack of focus, which is something I know I should do better. Also, I think I could do a better job at remembering things if I applied myself more to the situation. Dispositions That Support Me My positivity is at the top of the list for me that I don’t want to change. I get so much of my mojo from being and staying positive that I can’t see myself changing this. I also think that my faith is something that I wouldn’t change, unless I did it for myself. That i...
Post a Comment
Read more