Pretty much every company I’ve been in or know of values a vertical trajectory instead of a horizontal one for its employees i.e becoming a manager nearly always means a faster salary progression than becoming an expert in one or multiple fields.
Why is expertise valued less?
At the end of the day, a single person can only do so much work. All the experience in the world doesn’t change that there is only 24hrs in a day.
A good leader can enable a team of people to work together achieving more than the sum of their individual contributions.
Leaders are force multiplier, and good ones should be compensated as such.
Sadly, we also over compensate the shitty leaders far too often as well :/
Leadership is undoubtedly important and good leadership even more so, but why do you bring singularity (“one person can only do so much work”)? Experts work in teams too. Is there some kind of connotation with expertise that leads you (or people) to believe that is something which cannot be brought into a team?
That is true, but isn’t the ability of the team members important too? For example, if you have a team of juniors, you can get to a goal, however the question is in what state. And if the leader is just a leader but doesn’t have understanding of the sector, why should their leadership be valued more than that of the team members who do?
As for force multipliers, experts can be force multipliers too. An expert that helps out and resolves (or even prevents) tricky situations for fellow team members (or the entire team) can improve team cohesion and productivity. Experts also often have an educative role in the team to spread knowledge and understanding. That seems to be valued less, and I don’t understand why.
All your examples involve teams, and teams don’t typically happen without some form of leadership from someone. An expert without leadership skills will be far less effective at building a team around them than someone with the expertise and the leadership skills.
The expert your describing in your last paragragh IS a leader. If they aren’t being compensated as such, thats just them being exploited, and they need to advocate for more appropriate compensation.
Are you just unlucky in your experiences? Expert team leads can absolutely make as much as managers.
But there’s a convergence as you spend more and more time making decisions and directing others that you will effectively be a manager.
I used to scoff at the idea of “leaders” until I experienced good leadership and learned the difference between lead and manage.
I suspect a lot of people here think they mean the same thing.
Here’s a point though; to build vertical experience as an expert I’m starting to suspect that one would be less subject to changing companies.
Whereas leaders have no need to stay in place and change more often.
And one typically increases their compensation package much faster via changes of employer.
Just my thoughts contemplating that I just reached the low bar on my function band as a coe lead after 8 damn years into the function. Loyalty isn’t rewarded.
Leadership takes effort and focus.
Having worked in orgs where everyone is expected to lead at different times, I can tell you that leading takes effort and focus - that’s effort and focus that’s not spent on your area of expertise.
Good leaders spend all their effort on making a team work better - no different than a good coach.
There’s 24h in a day for leaders too. A leader cannot achieve infinite output by being infinitely good, just like an expert cannot achieve infinite output by being infinitely good.
Expertise is also a force multiplier.
A single expert in a team of juniors can do so much more. Because it can delegate the junior work to the juniors while doing only expert work. Thus ending up with more expert work done.
Your last paragragh describes a leader…
This part is definitely true but I think it misses the point. A single expert can be a force multiplier, or they can be overbearing dead weight. There is the possibility a technical expert wants to micromanage and see every step as it is done (thus holding up work that can be done while the expert is elsewhere).
I conjecture that those skills and attributes that separate the two experts we’ve described is what “good leadership” consists of.
I would never trust a leader who has no technical skills, but neither would I trust a leader who has only technical skills.
You can also have shit leaders that micromanage. What even is your point?
Being a technical expert != being a good leader
There are a set of skills and attributes that enable one to leader well. An ideal leader will have both technical skills and leadership capability, but it is possible for each to exist independently in a person.