221. Technical Competence is Not the Differentiator
- 2 days ago
- 14 min read
Technical skills are just the price of admission, and no one tells us while we're earning our degrees that soft skills like communication, relationship-building, and political savvy are what actually drive career advancement. For those of us navigating male-dominated fields, developing these skills comes with an exhausting double bind — we're penalized for both having and not having them.
You've already proven you can master the technical side—you wouldn't be where you are if you couldn't. Now prove to yourself that you can master everything else that matters, too.
Are you relying on your technical excellence to get ahead, only to watch others get promoted around you? Are you caught in the double bind where being assertive gets you labeled "difficult," but being collaborative gets you dismissed as "not serious enough"? Are you worried your technical specialty could become obsolete before you've built the transferable skills needed to pivot?
You'll learn that technical competence is only the entry point to your career, and that soft skills like communication, political savvy, and relationship-building are what actually determine who advances and who gets left behind.
WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER
Why the double bind women face in male-dominated fields makes developing the soft skills needed for career advancement uniquely challenging and exhausting
6 practical strategies to future-proof your career
Why you are at risk of being left behind as your workplace rapidly evolves
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TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the Stop Sabotaging Your Success podcast, episode two hundred and twenty-one. I'm your host Cindy Esliger. This is the podcast focusing on what we can do today to take control of our careers and overcome the inevitable barriers to success that we encounter along the way.
Have you experienced that moment when you realize the rules of the game aren't quite what you thought they were? The uncomfortable truth that nobody mentions while we're struggling to complete the coursework for our engineering degree is that your technical skills are just the price of admission. They're the ante that gets you to the table. But what determines whether you actually win at this game is an entirely different skill set, and it's one that women in STEM fields are simultaneously expected to have, yet punished for displaying.
In this episode, we're talking about why technical competence is just the minimum and why that's particularly challenging for those of us navigating careers in male-dominated professions where the goalposts seem to move every time we get close to them. We'll dig into the unique double bind women face when developing the soft skills that actually drive career success, the real costs of staying in the technical expert lane too long, the warning signs that you might be headed for a career dead end, and most importantly, the strategies you can use right now to future-proof your career. Because the workplace is changing faster than ever and waiting for your technical excellence to be recognized is a strategy that's going to leave you waiting a very long time.
Let's start with the belief that got most of us, including me, into this mess in the first place. If I just keep my head down, do excellent work, and prove my technical competence, I'll get recognized and advance. It's a lovely idea. It's based on our belief that work is a meritocracy, that it's fair, and unfortunately, it's complete nonsense. Here's the reality: while your male colleagues get the benefit of presumed credibility and competence from day one, based solely on their potential, you're expected to keep proving yourself, over and over again. Want a lead role on a new project? Prove yourself. Want to manage a new project team? Prove yourself. Want a key role at a stakeholder meeting? Better prove yourself again because they definitely aren't assuming you'll know how to handle yourself. They are just not willing to take a chance on you.
But while you're busy proving your technical chops, you might be neglecting the skills that actually drive career advancement—like communication, political savvy, relationship-building, and emotional intelligence. You know, all those 'soft skills' that we're told, implicitly or explicitly, aren't as important as mastering the hard technical stuff. Except that they are just as important, if not more. Problem-solving, delegating, motivating, and team-building are all exponentially easier if you have strong people skills. Your technical skills are probably what got you your foot in the door, but it's your people skills that are what will open most of the doors going forward.
You may have noticed that the workplace is changing at a pace that will give anyone whiplash. What you're doing now will likely be different in one to three years, not the three to five year timeline that we used to plan our careers around. One to three years—that's barely enough time to get good at something before it evolves into something else.
Organizations aren't just looking for people who can execute technical tasks anymore. They're desperate for people who can navigate ambiguity, lead diverse teams, communicate across disciplines and departments, adapt to constant change, troubleshoot and anticipate what might go wrong before it does, and somehow make it all look effortless. Pure technical expertise without these skills—that's a one-way ticket to staying in an individual contributor role while watching those around you get promoted into leadership positions. I'm not saying that's always a bad thing. Sometimes, that might be the best place to be, because as I've said before, that not all of us are meant to manage people.
There's a special version of this challenge that those of us in male-dominated fields seem to always have to navigate. It's what is referred to as the double bind, and it's exhausting. When we're collaborative and relationship-focused, we're seen as less technical or less serious—you know, "she's nice, but does she really know her stuff?".
But when we're direct and technically assertive, we're labeled aggressive, bossy, or the dreaded 'not a team player'. Our natural communication style is often misinterpreted as a sign of low confidence or less capable. We have to be intentional about projecting both competence and connection simultaneously—a delicate balancing act at the best of times.
This creates some very specific problems that compound over time. Here are four of the most common problems we tend to face as we try to balance everything:
The invisibility trap. Your excellent technical work gets attributed to the team or your manager, while you personally remain invisible when promotion opportunities come around. You delivered that critical project feature? Great team effort. You solved that impossible technical problem? The whole team really pulled together on that one. Meanwhile, someone else takes credit for it all and somehow ends up on the high-potential list.
The likability penalty. When you do start developing the assertiveness and political savvy needed to advance, you risk being labeled as "hard to work with" or being "a little rough around the edges". By exhibiting the same behavior that helps your male colleagues be seen as strong leaders might just make you someone who "needs executive coaching to improve interpersonal skills". It's maddening, but it's what actually happens in the real world.
The catch-up cycle. By the time you realize that soft skills actually matter more than you thought, you might have to catch-up a huge amount before you can even start heading in a new direction. You've spent years doubling down on the technical depth while others were building breadth in relationships and improving their communication and organizational savvy. Closing that gap while still managing to handle your ever-growing workload can be a lot.
The promotion pitfall. You finally get promoted based on your technical expertise, only to discover that your new management role requires you to do almost none of the technical work you excelled at. Instead, you're managing people, navigating politics, coordinating projects and handling administrative tasks, and dealing with interpersonal drama. Nobody prepared you for this. The organization probably offered you exactly zero management training, and now you're expected to figure it out on the fly while everyone watches to see if you can handle it, knowing full well that the skill sets are completely different.
If you aspire to move ahead in a typical organization, you'll have to demonstrate your capabilities beyond your technical expertise. So, as you might imagine, you have one shot to get this right. If you don't, you risk hitting a dead end in a purely technical role while your industry evolves past your specialty. I've seen this happen to brilliant engineers whose deep expertise in one specific area became obsolete and they hadn't developed the transferable skills needed to pivot.
You also risk getting passed over for management opportunities because you're just "too valuable" in your current role—which is just code for "we don't see you as leadership material". And once that happens, you miss out on the networking and relationship-building that creates those unexpected opportunities that change careers.
It never ceases to amaze me that organizations expect that everyone just knows how to behave professionally. They assume everyone understands the importance of being on time, taking initiative, being friendly, reliably producing high-quality work, and even knowing how to navigate office politics effectively. It's similar to coming to the realization that common sense isn't as common as it used to be.
Assuming these skills are universal leads to massive frustration for everyone, but especially for those of us who were led to believe that technical excellence alone would be enough. Nobody told us that we'd also need to be good at reading power dynamics, building strategic relationships, and communicating our value in ways that ensure we get noticed. We thought our great work would speak for itself, and yet, it doesn't. It's a good thing that, as women, we tend to already be inherently good at the other stuff.
So, how do you know if you're heading for trouble? Here are six warning signs you need to watch for:
You're the go-to technical expert, but never the go-to for leadership opportunities. People seek you out when there's a hard technical problem, but your name doesn't come up when they're discussing who should lead the new initiative. You're valued for what you know, but not for who you could develop into. That's a problem.
You actively avoid office politics because it feels uncomfortable, manipulative, or beneath you. I get it. It does feel that way sometimes. But while you're opting-out on principle alone, others are building the relationships and gathering the information that leads to advancement. Political savvy isn't about being fake or manipulative; it's about understanding how decisions really get made and ensuring your voice is part of those conversations.
You've been in the same role for three years or more, with nothing but vague promises of "future opportunities". No clear career path usually means your development is blocked, and no amount of excellent technical work is going to change that. If there's nowhere for you to go upward, you need to start looking outward.
You feel most successful and energized when doing deep technical work, alone. I understand the appeal—it's clear, it's satisfying, and you're genuinely good at it. But this preference keeps you from building and demonstrating the skills necessary, like delegation, communication, and team-building that facilitate moving into leadership roles. If you want to advance, you'll need to get comfortable working with and through others.
Your company offers no continuous development beyond technical training. If you're not working for a company that's renowned for developing its people, you're going to need to take charge of your own career future-proofing. They're not going to do it for you.
You can't articulate your accomplishments and results in business terms. If someone asks what you've delivered and you launch into technical details instead of business impact, you're not doing yourself any favors. Without being able to communicate your value in terms executives care about, you're not going to be top of mind when opportunities arise.
Perhaps at this point you're getting a little concerned that you have a bit of work to do. Let me assure you, putting in the work now will be worth it in the long run. I know right now it all seems exhausting. When you develop these skills strategically, you will start to see things change.
You gain visibility because people skills help you communicate your technical accomplishments in ways that actually get noticed and rewarded.
You build career resilience because transferable soft skills protect you when your technical specialty starts to become obsolete or gets outsourced to cheaper labor markets.
You become eligible for leadership opportunities because organizations desperately need people who can motivate teams, delegate effectively, and navigate complexity.
You create a professional network that generates opportunities you'll never find on a job board.
You develop strategic influence that lets you shape decisions and direction instead of just executing what others have already decided.
You can achieve genuine success—leveraging your skills in a positive, knowledgeable way while creating new ways of working based on your abilities rather than being limited by gender stereotypes.
You're not just succeeding in spite of the challenges we seem to continue to face in being in a male-dominated field. You're changing what success looks like.
So, what can we actually do about all of this? Let me give you six practical strategies that focus on what we can control, because I'm sure you're well aware that there's plenty we can't control:
Start future-proofing your career. This isn't optional anymore—the pace of change is too fast. Create and maintain a success journal where you document your accomplishments in business impact terms, not just a list of your technical achievements. Develop competencies and transferable skills beyond your current technical role. If you only know how to do your current job, you're leaving yourself vulnerable. Build and maintain a professional network both inside and outside your organization. Those relationships are often how you hear about opportunities before they're posted. Stay aware of trends in your industry and prepare now for potential downward slides or dying fields. And become (and do what you can to remain) technically savvy by staying on top of developments that may not seem directly related to your current role, because technology that seems tangential today might be central to your work down the road.
Be intentional about projecting both confidence and competence. You don't get the benefit of presumed credibility, so you need to learn to communicate what you do well, without apology, but also without arrogance—another tightrope to walk, I know. Practice balancing connection with competence. Be collaborative, yes, but make your technical contributions visible. Don't let your work disappear into the abyss of what "the team delivered". Document your work and share updates regularly so your contributions aren't overlooked or accidentally attributed to others.
Develop soft skills with the same rigor you applied to learning your technical skills. Pick one to focus on at a time so you don't get overwhelmed. Communication is huge—learn to tailor your message to your audience because executives need different information than what technical teams want. Develop delegation skills so you can leverage others' abilities rather than doing everything yourself. Learn what drives different team members and stakeholders so you can inspire action. Build political savvy by mapping the informal power structure and building professional relationships strategically. And, work on your emotional intelligence—reading the room, managing your reactions, and responding to others effectively are all learnable skills.
Think globally and stay ahead of change. Your coworkers, clients, and stakeholders can be anywhere in the world now. Geographic barriers to business are becoming less relevant. Always be looking one to three years ahead given how rapidly things are changing. You can't plan five years out anymore—the landscape shifts too quickly. Pick and choose strategies to future-proof your career based on your industry and personal circumstances. And, as those circumstances change, be willing to adapt your approach.
If a promotion to management is in your future—whether you want it or not—prepare for the transition before it happens. Find a mentor who's made the leap from technical expert to manager and can give you honest advice about what worked and what didn't. Do an honest skills assessment to identify which management skills you need to develop. Start learning delegation and team motivation skills now, while you still have the safety net of your current role. And understand that your identity will shift when you move into management. You'll be starting at the beginning again in a new role, and that can be harder than you might expect.
Take inventory regularly and be proactive about your development. Don't wait for your company to offer what you need—stay current even when they don't support it. Recognize opportunities to change direction before you hit a dead end and have no options left. Keep your skills current and your opportunities open. Don't let yourself fall so far behind in developing these crucial skills that catching-up becomes too overwhelming.
Soft skills are increasingly becoming the differentiator in today's workforce. They're not optional nice-to-haves anymore. They're essential for organizational and professional success in any field. But here's the thing—organizations still expect people to just know this stuff. They rarely provide training for it, especially at companies that aren't renowned for developing their people.
For those of us in male-dominated fields, there's an extra layer of complexity. We're navigating a landscape where the same behaviors get interpreted completely differently, based on gender. What makes a man seem assertive, makes a woman appear aggressive. What makes a man a strong leader, makes a woman get labeled as 'difficult'. We have to develop these skills and then learn to deploy them in ways that don't trigger bias. It's an exhausting additional burden that many of our male colleagues don't even know exists.
But here's the empowering truth I want you to hold onto: these skills are learnable. You developed technical competence through deliberate practice and hard work. You can develop people skills the exact same way. You don't have to become someone you're not or adopt some fake persona. You can find your own way of being open to the input of others while still showing your competence, of being politically savvy while staying true to your values, and of being a strong communicator while maintaining elements of your own communication style.
The goal here isn't to play a rigged game better, though that's sometimes how it feels. The real goal is to develop the skills that give you options, open doors you didn't even know existed, and let you create new ways of working based on your abilities rather than limiting gender stereotypes. You're not just trying to succeed within the existing system—you're building the capability to change it, but that takes time. Probably more time than we'd like.
So, here's where we are at this point. Your technical competence was never going to be enough, and that's something that nobody was very upfront about. Now you know. The question is, what are you going to do about it?
I invite you to start small. Don't try to overhaul everything at once—that's a recipe for overwhelm and then just giving up. Pick one soft skill to develop this month. Maybe it's improving how you communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders. Maybe it's having coffee with someone in a different department to expand your network. Maybe it's starting that success journal and documenting your last three wins in business impact terms. Find one mentor who you think has navigated this transition well from technical expert to leader. Build one new professional relationship with someone whose career path interests you.
The workplace is changing faster than any of us would like. It belongs to people who can combine technical expertise with the human skills that drive organizational success. Teamwork, leadership, and communication are all underpinned by soft skills development, and these capabilities are becoming more critical than ever as organizations struggle to find meaningful ways to remain competitive and productive.
Don't wait until you're stuck, frustrated, and watching others advance to start future-proofing your career. Don't wait until your specialty becomes obsolete, your company reorganizes, or AI pushes you out of a job. And definitely don't wait until you're so far behind in developing these skills that catching-up feels impossible.
You've already proven you can master the technical side—you wouldn't be where you are if you couldn't. Now prove to yourself that you can master everything else that matters, too.
Your future depends on it. The women coming up behind you, watching to see what's possible, are counting on it. And honestly, you deserve to have options, influence, and opportunities that match your capabilities.
Technical expertise alone was never going to get you there, but your technical skills combined with mastering those interpersonal skills—that's a combination that can take you anywhere you want to go.
And that's it for this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Remember to download your Guide to Future-Proofing Your Career at cindyesliger.com/podcast, episode two hundred and twenty-one.
Thank you to our producer, Alex Hochhausen and everyone at Astronomic Audio. Get in touch, I'm on Instagram @cindyesliger. My email address is info@cindyesliger.com.
If you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out The Confidence Collective. It's my monthly coaching program where we dig a little deeper into what's holding you back in your career and we find the workarounds. We help you overcome the barriers and create the career you want. Join me over at cindyesliger.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in The Confidence Collective.
Until next week, I'm Cindy Esliger. Thanks for listening.
