There are leaders who believe that they can successfully lead any company in any industry.
These leaders do not discriminate between a tech startup and a long-established financial corporation, and they are adamant that they can be equally effective at getting the best results for any organization, regardless of the industry that the latter operates.
Leaders who are industry experts but fail to deliver
By making use of the reductio ad absurdum method, and showing that leaders with expert knowledge of their industry can indeed fail, it could be demonstrated that it is not, in fact, necessary for leaders to have any technical knowledge of their industry to be successful.
From leading voluntary organizations and charities to holding leadership roles in sports clubs, various examples can be cited to support the argument that having expert and specific technical knowledge of an industry cannot guarantee leadership success.
Industry knowledge may not suffice
Although industry knowledge definitely helps, it may not prove to be enough in practice.
For example, former employees who have just been promoted to leadership positions may possess an excellent record of achievement as subordinates; once they assume leadership duties though, it may become evident that they lack the necessary leadership pedigree and foundations to support their role as leaders.
Leading vs. buying and selling organizations
Truly leading an organization has a lot to do with taking it out of corporate swamps when necessary, providing it with strong backing during times of turmoil, and assisting it to achieve its goals sustainably in the medium and long run.
By contrast, buying and selling companies just any other asset that is available for trading has little to do with the very essence of leadership and its effectiveness.
Leadership as an art
Although the role of holding specific and general knowledge cannot be overlooked among leaders, perhaps even more than knowledge, leadership is an art, and a fine one.
Just like a fine painter or a top literary writer, a triumphant leader should have the ability and talent to make an optimum combination of his inherent and acquired knowledge and skills.
That is the reason why a leader with a stronger theoretical background and a better record of achievement may perform worse than a less skilled and qualified leader on certain occasions.
What counts is the ability to make an optimum mixture of any knowledge and skills available, in order to address a situation and resolve a problem within an organization rather than the knowledge and skills alone; it this artful ability that sets effective leaders apart from the pack.
General knowledge of leadership
As a leader advances to taking more senior roles within an organization, he or she should focus more on acquiring and implementing leadership knowledge in a more general context.
In other words, senior duties should come with a leader’s ability to see the wood for the trees.
In this sense, if a leader possesses a strong background of general knowledge of leadership and its principles, he or she may escape the need of having a high level of industry-specific technical knowledge, because the basic foundations and principles of leadership can be universally applied across all industries.
Sources and further reading:
Are there any examples of CEOs who have no technical background but became successful CEOs?
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