743: How to Teach Your Expertise to Others, with Roger Kneebone

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Education, Business, Management, Self-improvement, Careers

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Roger Kneebone: Expert
Roger Kneebone directs the Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science and the Royal College of Music–Imperial College Centre for Performance Science. He researches what experts from different fields can learn from one another, including a creative team of clinicians, computer scientists, musicians, magicians, potters, puppeteers, tailors, and fighter pilots. He is the author of Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery*.

Many leaders get into the roles they have because they are the experts in their work. But once you’re leading, the work is less about being the expert and more about teaching your expertise to others. In this conversation, Roger and I explore how to get better at doing this well.
Key Points

Experts don’t often recognize that they are experts.
A characteristic of many experts is a dissatisfaction with where they are and an awareness that they could do better.
Experts should notice what’s missing and what would be most helpful to the less experienced person.
Effective teachers zero in on one thing at a time, even if they notice many areas for improvement.
Passing along expertise is not just the skills themselves but the perspective of why each skill matters.
Land in the zone of proximal development. The skill should neither be too easy or too difficult.

Resources Mentioned

Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery* by Roger Kneebone

Interview Notes
Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).
Related Episodes

Help People Learn Through Powerful Teaching, with Pooja Agarwal (episode 421)
The Art of Mentoring Well, with Robert Lefkowitz (episode 599)
How to Handle High-Pressure Situations, with Dan Dworkis (episode 701)

Discover More
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Transcript

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0:00.0	Many leaders get into the roles they have because they are experts in their work.
0:05.8	But once you're leading, the work is less about being the expert and more about teaching your expertise to others.
0:14.1	In this episode, how to get better at doing that well.
0:18.3	This is Coaching for Leaders, Episode 743.
0:22.9	Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.
0:31.3	Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host,
0:40.8	Dave Stahofiak. Leaders aren't born,
0:46.6	they're made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. I say that at the beginning of every episode, leaders aren't born, they're made.
0:51.9	It is, I think, so true for so many of us. And that
0:55.9	leadership is a learned skill. It's the thing that most of us really didn't learn about in school.
1:04.3	We didn't learn about earlier in our careers. And often we show up at a place in our careers where
1:10.8	all of a sudden, the role has changed.
1:14.5	It's no longer about us just performing well ourselves.
1:18.2	It's helping other people to be able to do the work that we do to be able to pass along our expertise.
1:25.4	And that is so much at the heart of today's conversation of how we can
1:29.3	pass along a bit of our expertise to others. And I'm so pleased to welcome Roger Nebone.
1:35.8	Roger directs the Imperial College Center for Engagement and Simulation Science and the Royal
1:41.1	College of Music, Imperial College Center for Performance Science.
1:45.3	He researches what experts from different fields can learn from one another, including a
1:50.6	creative team of clinicians, computer scientists, musicians, magicians, potters, puppeteers,
1:57.8	tailors, and fighter pilots. He is the author of Expert, Understanding the Path to Mastery.
2:06.2	Roger, hi, it's so good to have you on the show. Well, hi, David. It's a great pleasure to be on the show.
	...

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