Leveraging Technical Talent

Technical professionals possess specialized skills and expertise. They include programmers, engineers, analysts, scientists, creatives, technicians and accountants. Organizations of all sizes across all industries depend on them.

Three out of four of the leaders we recently surveyed agreed that the technical professionals they manage do not share the same needs and concerns as the workforce at large. That finding didn’t surprise us. We have studied technical professionals and their leaders for more than two decades.

In our experience, technical professionals value a blend of autonomy, achievement, collegial support and sharing, participation in mission and goals, professional identification and keeping current. It takes a highly skilled leader to accommodate those needs and focus individual talents on what the organization needs.

As if that wasn’t enough, our research indicates that many leaders of technical professionals face additional challenges:

• Delivering more with fewer resources – most likely while they’re see-sawing between completion of their own projects and coaching their team through theirs
• Transitioning from a technical expert to a leader who can guide and engage a team of experts
• Managing a growing number of culturally diverse and/or virtual team members

How We Can Help

We understand the unique challenges you face in engaging and developing a highly technical workforce. We offer proven processes and tools for...

• Providing leaders of technical professionals with skills and strategies for making the most of their team's knowledge, expertise, independence and confidence…
• Equipping technical leaders and their teams with communication strategies and skills for gaining the approval, collaboration and resources needed to implement new ideas…
• Assessing the personal effectiveness of leaders at integrating business competence and personal connection …
• Improving the ability of leaders to create meaning and inspire commitment …
• Coaching individuals in their transition from technical expert to effective leader …

Related Links

Client Case Studies

Leadership Excellence: Leading Innovation

"Smartest Employees Most Difficult to Manage" a Talent Management article by Christopher Rice

BlessingWhite’s Leading Technical Professionals Report 2006

Talent Management: Managing Dispersed Technical Teams

BlessingWhite eNews: Five Tips for Avoiding the 'My Way' Trap

BlessingWhite eNews: Leading Technical Professionals: A Challenging Equation

BlessingWhite eNews: Winning the Tug of War: the Challenges of Leading Technical Professionals