Don’t Worry About being an Expert, Work on being a Trusted Authority Instead

Years ago, when I was a teaching assistant in grad school (teaching a zoology lab, of all things!), I had an experience that changed the way I thought about being an expert forever. As you might guess, a zoology lab is intended to teach students about the diverse animal life on earth.  There are lots and lots and LOTS of animals on earth!  As a second year grad student in my twenties, needless to say, I did not know everything about every animal that exists.  But I believed my job as a teacher was to be an “expert” on the topic.

Back then, I thought being an expert meant knowing the answer to any question a student might bring up.  That would have meant, literally, knowing everything there is to know about every animal on earth.  I’m pretty sure there aren’t many second year grad students who know that much about animals.  In fact, I’m pretty sure there are absolutely NO people with 50 years of experience studying animals, a Ph.D. and a Nobel Prize who know everything about animals.

Well, that seems obvious to me now, but back then…I thought I was supposed to be that kind of expert. Talk about stressful! To tell you the truth, I found it so stressful that I almost quit grad school.  That’s right, I didn’t almost quit teaching the class, I almost quit grad school altogether!  Then something amazing happened one day that I will never forget.

A student came up to me and asked me a question I absolutely positively did not know the answer to.  I could not even pretend to know the answer.  So, instead of blustering my way through a non-answer using big words to ensure the student couldn’t call my bluff (as many a misguided teacher has done), I just said: “You know, I don’t know the answer to that question, but let’s grab a book and we’ll look it up together.”

We walked over to the bookshelf, grabbed a book, and flipped through the pages together until we found the answer to the student’s question. And guess what happened? Not only did the student not treat me like a fraud and a loser, she thanked me sincerely, and went back to work.

What I now realize is, taking her to the bookshelf and looking up the answer with her was much more helpful than if I had just spouted off an answer (or worse, a non-answer).  By doing that, I was showing her how to find the next answer herself.  What she needed most in that moment was not someone who knew all the answers, but someone who knew how to find the answer. I was modeling the behavior it takes to move towards mastery. When I did this I wasn’t being an expert, I was being a trusted authority.

Expert vs. Trusted Authority

Over time, I’ve developed my own distinctly different definitions of what it means to be an expert and what it means to be a trusted authority.  See if they resonate with you.

Expert: someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of a topic.  An expert has 50 years of experience, a Ph.D. and a Nobel Prize in their area of expertise. An expert is someone who sits alone in their office thinking deep thoughts and making cutting edge discoveries never imagined by others.  An expert is someone who I most likely could not grab a coffee with if I had a few questions I wanted to bounce around.

Trusted Authority: someone who knows more than me about a topic. A trusted authority has distinct competence in their area of expertise based both on knowledge and experience. A trusted authority models the path towards mastery by demonstrating consistent improvement themselves. This person is a “trusted” authority because I have a relationship with them based on past positive experiences. A trusted authority would invite ME out for that coffee if they thought they could help.

Don’t bother Googling these definitions, I invented them based on my own experiences! But I’ll bet you can relate to them in some way. We all have people in our lives who have used their knowledge and experience to help us out.  Maybe they were a mentor at work, a teacher, or a friend who had an experience similar to the one we were going through. That person may not have been the ultimate world’s expert on the topic they guided us in, but they had a huge impact on our life (maybe more than they will ever know). You know who those people are in your own life, right?

Imposter Syndrome vs. Trusted Authority

Let’s talk about the subject that you yourself are an expert in. Think of one or more topics that you know something about or that you have experience in. Now answer this question: are you an expert on that topic? A few of you might be thinking, yes!  But I’m guessing the majority of you, when you asked yourself that question, thought something more along the lines of: well, I know something about that topic and I’ve had some experience, but I don’t know if I’d call myself an expert.

I’ve had the same thought myself at times!  I certainly don’t have 50 years of experience, a Ph.D. and a Nobel Prize in any one topic I know something about. The problem comes when the feeling that you are not an “expert” holds you back from doing or achieving the things you want to do in your career or your life. If that happens, you might be struggling with Imposter Syndrome – where you doubt your own accomplishments and knowledge, or feel like you got as far as you did because of luck, favoritism, or some other force not related to your own abilities.

Here’s why thinking of yourself as a trusted authority instead of an expert can help you overcome Imposter Syndrome.  According to my definition, an expert is the end-all be-all master of a subject, but a trusted authority is someone who knows enough to help.  Someone who can and will help, which makes them of much more value than the expert in most circumstances.  Thinking about it this way, you can let yourself off the hook for not knowing every single thing there is to know in the entire world about the subject of your expertise, AND know that you are actually of more value to the person you are helping.

And, by the way, you are of more value to your employer, your clients, your students, etc.

There is something the idea of Imposter Syndrome and the idea of being a trusted authority have in common. Both relate to the way we believe others see us.  If we have Imposter Syndrome, we believe others might think of us as unqualified, or a fraud because we don’t yet have perfect mastery of a subject yet. If we think of ourselves as a trusted authority, we believe others look to us to either know the answer, find the answer, or simply help guide their thinking on the matter.

The Value of being a Trusted Authority

Speaking of guiding others’ thinking, there is one part of my definition of a trusted authority that you can Google. It’s the idea that one who is an authority has the “power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior” (that’s from Merriam-Webster, actually). This means if you are a trusted authority, you have a leg up on a mere expert because people who know you will listen to you and take your advice. In fact, they may trust your opinion more than a so-called expert (50 years of experience…and so on).  Here’s an example.

I teach a course at a local university each fall related to the work I do as a consultant.  Last year I had the bright idea to invite two former students who had just started their first jobs to come in and speak to the class about the transition from being a student to being an employed professional.  You could have heard a pin drop when these two were speaking.  The students were literally hanging on their every word.  And when they asked if there were questions, the floodgates opened.

To those juniors and seniors in college, there simply could not have been a more valuable trusted authority than two people who had just gone through what they were going through at that moment. These new professionals didn’t even have a year of experience under their belts in their new careers, but what they did have was direct experience in the one and only topic the students really cared about.  How to get a job.

Here’s my point. Don’t let the fear that you are not ‘expert enough” in your field stop you from being a trusted authority who brings value to your friends, your coworkers, your employers, your clients and your students.  Also, don’t underestimate that value.  It might be worth a raise or a promotion.  It might even be enough value to start your own company some day.

Thinking of yourself as a trusted authority can bring value in other ways, too. By embracing the idea that it’s ok not to know everything there is to know right now, you can give yourself permission to keep getting better at the same time that you are helping others. The idea that expertise is a journey instead of a destination can help you shift from feeling stressed that you don’t know enough to enjoying the pleasure of learning and constantly improving your mastery.

If you’d like to be notified when I post new articles to this site, you can sign up here: