Lately I’ve been working with some technical leaders and their teams. There’s something I’ve noticed, to varying degrees, across all the teams. The leader has very specific, highly valuable and genuinely scarce expertise. They have built their career on it. But now they’ve risen to a level of seniority that demands they move beyond the hands-on resolution of technical issues. For some, that was a significant challenge that they worked hard to achieve. Others are still grappling with it. In both cases, that effort falters when an issue arises that requires them to step back into the role of technical expert.