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You Can't Know It All
Make the move from star contributor to exceptional leader in this long overdue hands-on guide.
Today's organizations are packed full of experts in every area from marketing to sales to IT. Many of these people are also leaders, heading teams or departments. They lead because they know more than the rest of their group. They are followed because of their credibility as experts.
Yet, the toughest transition in business comes when expert leaders are asked to move beyond their expertise and lead a larger group, they struggle with how to span a broad area without trying to become the expert in every aspect. In Wanda Wallace's experience, this move-from expert to spanning leader-requires a new mindset about how to lead.
Wallace explains what few people understand-how to add value as a leader when you're spanning an ever growing set of responsibilities. In You Can't Know It All, Wallace presents the coaching model she has developed to address this challenging transition. She provides tools and strategies for individuals to navigate their new roles and learn to combine their expertise with their leadership responsibilities. She also offers essential advice on the fundamental change in mindset that this requires.
Not just for novice managers, this invaluable handbook offers human resources professionals and mentors insights into why their company's star performer may be suddenly floundering, and offers essential tools to guide them.
Today's organizations are packed full of experts in every area from marketing to sales to IT. Many of these people are also leaders, heading teams or departments. They lead because they know more than the rest of their group. They are followed because of their credibility as experts.
Yet, the toughest transition in business comes when expert leaders are asked to move beyond their expertise and lead a larger group, they struggle with how to span a broad area without trying to become the expert in every aspect. In Wanda Wallace's experience, this move-from expert to spanning leader-requires a new mindset about how to lead.
Wallace explains what few people understand-how to add value as a leader when you're spanning an ever growing set of responsibilities. In You Can't Know It All, Wallace presents the coaching model she has developed to address this challenging transition. She provides tools and strategies for individuals to navigate their new roles and learn to combine their expertise with their leadership responsibilities. She also offers essential advice on the fundamental change in mindset that this requires.
Not just for novice managers, this invaluable handbook offers human resources professionals and mentors insights into why their company's star performer may be suddenly floundering, and offers essential tools to guide them.
245 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 18, 2019
69 people are currently reading
308 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 13, 2019
I read this for my learning time at work. (I get to choose what I want to read, though I assume I would not be allowed to read Kate Daniels for the billionth time.) The title jumped out at me because I DO like knowing things, but I also do know that I can't know everything! So this book is a lot about learning to be comfortable with that and with leaning on your team to back you up. Which is certainly something that's been very relevant to me this year as I've been on projects about things I don't know much about. Even now, having learned a lot, I don't know it ALL.
Maybe this ended up being another one that reinforced things for me rather than "taught" me, but there's value in that. I also really appreciated the sort of "case stories" of people struggling at new jobs, especially when they had always succeeded before. This is always reassuring!
Maybe this ended up being another one that reinforced things for me rather than "taught" me, but there's value in that. I also really appreciated the sort of "case stories" of people struggling at new jobs, especially when they had always succeeded before. This is always reassuring!
December 4, 2020
I found this book extremely helpful given where I am currently at in my career. As someone who is a growing leader in an expert role, the framework around transitioning from expert to spanning is something I was able to easily digest and put into action in my own career. The examples throughout the book helped reinforce and really drive home each concept. Dr. Wallace not only provides insight and framework but walks you through how to action on becoming a spanning leader. Highly recommend!
March 9, 2023
Wanda T. Wallace’s new book is titled You Can’t Know It All: Leading in the Age of Deep Expertise. It’s part of a line of books in the self-help and leadership advice nonfiction subcategories that’s unusually effective, in part because Wallace boils things down communicatively to their bare essentials. In that formation, the techniques she advocates for don’t just feel like effective organization structures. They feel like simple tenets from the bastion of common sense. “In most of the cases I’ve encountered in my decades of teaching, coaching, consulting, and leading workshops for global corporations, the main issue is transitioning from a position where authority and credibility are based on an individual’s deep expertise—financial knowledge, for example, or technical mastery—into a role where specific expertise is much less relevant, where a person’s leadership must encompass groups with an array of skills, abilities, attitudes, and perceptions,” Wallace writes. “…The basic idea is that expert leadership…is fundamentally different from leading heterogeneous groups of people who lack a shared knowledge base…I saw firsthand that there is a whole universe of expert leadership in companies, and it’s not confined to particular age groups or corporate echelons. The assumption used to be that although most individual contributors in knowledge companies are expert in something, specific expertise becomes less and less important as you move up the leadership pipeline through the stages of managing teams, running functions, becoming a general manager, and eventually graduating into the C-suite. Supposedly, the higher you go, the more you need to be a ‘generalist’ leader. But leadership pipelines are changing. Business today is so technical and complex that many companies desperately need their leaders to have deep expertise. I know of one leader who was so attached to his area of knowledge that midway through a program aimed at turning high-potential managers into international leaders, he simply dropped out and went back to his beloved area of expertise. Once upon a time this would have been career suicide—he would have been forever relegated to the bottom of the heap. Yet today he’s at the top of the organization, because his area of expertise is crucial to the company! In today’s business environment, experts like him are rewarded, promoted, and celebrated for their knowledge.”
She adds, “Whether it’s in finance, IT, legal, biotech, or real estate, experts can be found throughout the corporate hierarchy. The old-fashioned view of the corporation as being populated by professional managers is just wrong today. Instead it is full of specialists who have taken on management tasks. But organizations and rising leaders are not prepared to deal with this new reality. Many of these managers mainly know how to lead on the basis of their expertise, which is fine if they’re heading a function full of people immersed in the same knowledge. But at some point many leaders face a transition…They have to start leading in other ways so that they can manage people who don’t share their knowledge base and have a diverse range of viewpoints and agendas.”
She adds, “Whether it’s in finance, IT, legal, biotech, or real estate, experts can be found throughout the corporate hierarchy. The old-fashioned view of the corporation as being populated by professional managers is just wrong today. Instead it is full of specialists who have taken on management tasks. But organizations and rising leaders are not prepared to deal with this new reality. Many of these managers mainly know how to lead on the basis of their expertise, which is fine if they’re heading a function full of people immersed in the same knowledge. But at some point many leaders face a transition…They have to start leading in other ways so that they can manage people who don’t share their knowledge base and have a diverse range of viewpoints and agendas.”
July 4, 2023
I often come across programs, web summits, and books about leadership on LinkedIn. That is the ocean for corporate leaders. But that is not enough, ultimately books by subject matter experts confer extensive coverage on leadership with ample amount of examples from personal to professional lives. On similar approach is Wanda T. Wallace’s book – You Can’t Know It All – an exclusive book on two types of leadership that I will discuss in the review.
The book starts with expert leadership also known as E-leader. With examples of CFO Lionel and Sonia from Chicago, the author presented a lot about this type of leadership. Both Sonia and Lionel are expert leaders, adding value to their companies, but they aren’t S-leaders.
The author explores in the book that nowadays leaderships is not about fixed domain knowledge and expertise. One needs to be able to know all…it is like Jack of All Trades. Many call it generalist leadership. However, the author names it as Spanning Leadership, in short S-leader. The book further takes a stance on transitioning E-leader into S-leader. She does it with practical charting, anecdotes, and theories.
As I furthered charted in the book, I realized both types of leadership mean to add value to the company. But S-leadership is effective. The author takes you through all possible ways so that you can learn how to add value, get the work done, and interact with other departments to implement all the necessary aspects.
The book starts with expert leadership also known as E-leader. With examples of CFO Lionel and Sonia from Chicago, the author presented a lot about this type of leadership. Both Sonia and Lionel are expert leaders, adding value to their companies, but they aren’t S-leaders.
The author explores in the book that nowadays leaderships is not about fixed domain knowledge and expertise. One needs to be able to know all…it is like Jack of All Trades. Many call it generalist leadership. However, the author names it as Spanning Leadership, in short S-leader. The book further takes a stance on transitioning E-leader into S-leader. She does it with practical charting, anecdotes, and theories.
As I furthered charted in the book, I realized both types of leadership mean to add value to the company. But S-leadership is effective. The author takes you through all possible ways so that you can learn how to add value, get the work done, and interact with other departments to implement all the necessary aspects.
December 22, 2022
Common Challenges…uncommon but practical solutions
I see so many leaders and organizations that don’t understand the Expert vs. Spanning leader continuum and how to transition this. In a world where E- Leaders are heralded, this is a real encouragement to the naturally Spanning leaders who’re unsure the value of intangibles…
I see so many leaders and organizations that don’t understand the Expert vs. Spanning leader continuum and how to transition this. In a world where E- Leaders are heralded, this is a real encouragement to the naturally Spanning leaders who’re unsure the value of intangibles…
October 30, 2019
"S" stands for »spanning« leadership style
All in all an engaging reading that boils down to: The leader has many responsibilities, to envision the future and lead others there, through managing organizational internal, external communications and effectiveness and through building reputation of team members. Sometimes he also needs to think as an E-leader (as an expert) which is helpful, but just to an extent as to resist the urgency to give full directions and advice and instead build his team self reliance in solving problems and coping mechanisms. Supplied by wealth of exercises on improvement and self-evaluation. I found it quite useful in changing my perspective as a former E-leader transitioning into S-role.
All in all an engaging reading that boils down to: The leader has many responsibilities, to envision the future and lead others there, through managing organizational internal, external communications and effectiveness and through building reputation of team members. Sometimes he also needs to think as an E-leader (as an expert) which is helpful, but just to an extent as to resist the urgency to give full directions and advice and instead build his team self reliance in solving problems and coping mechanisms. Supplied by wealth of exercises on improvement and self-evaluation. I found it quite useful in changing my perspective as a former E-leader transitioning into S-role.
September 13, 2020
This is a fascinating look at one change facing people who move into upper management. She presents it as something new but I think the idea of having to become more of an overseer as you move up the ladder is not new. Upper management people are supposed to be looking at more of the big picture, develop strategy, and lead people from a number of expertise areas. However, I do like her discussion of how to make that shift in outlook as you move forward in your career. She presents some helpful exercises to practice things that might be out of the leader's comfort zone. Being a good leader in the upper echelons involves skills that can be learned.
October 4, 2019
I wish I would have read this book almost two years ago. You Can't Know It All focuses on the transition of leadership from an "expert" to a "spanning" leader. What does it look like to transition from being an expert in one area to leading the entire organization. Again, when I transitioned from the Equipping Pastor to Lead Pastor at Vintage Church, this book would have been incredibly helpful. If you find yourself in a similar transition, You Can't Know It All is worth your time!
October 18, 2019
I can see myself in this book. The differential between an "E-Leader" (Expert) and an "S-Leader" (Spanning) was really helpful, and I was able to identify when I've been in each of these roles (and especially when I was in one, or acting like I was in one, and I really should have been in the other).
I appreciated the insights this book brought.
I appreciated the insights this book brought.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews