Moving from a Top IC to a New Presales Leader with Akanksha Sehgal
Akanksha Sehgal, Director of Worldwide Technical Solutions at Omnisa, discusses her 13-year journey transitioning from top individual contributor to pre-sales leader, emphasizing that technical expertise alone doesn't prepare you for management and that successful leadership requires shifting focus from personal wins to team development, strategic thinking, and authentic leadership.
Summary
The episode features Akanksha Sehgal sharing her experiences moving from Solutions Engineer to Director of Technical Solutions, a transition she describes as involving significant blind spots and learnings. She explains that being a successful IC—even a top performer winning awards and handling strategic accounts—does not automatically translate to leadership skills. Her key breakthrough came when she recognized she needed to shift her definition of success from personal achievements to team success and growth.
Sehgal discusses the critical challenge of building influence and trust with former peers when moving into a management role. She found that taking time to understand each team member's individual aspirations, interests, and career goals—rather than projecting her own preferences onto them—was essential for earning trust. She notes that what motivates one person (like conference speaking opportunities) may not appeal to another, and effective leaders must tailor their approach accordingly.
A major turning point in her leadership development came when a mentor advised her to intentionally stop being the smartest person in the room. She explains that while technical expertise is expected of Solutions Engineers, managers who continue seeking that status actually slow down their team's growth. By stepping back and allowing team members to find answers and develop expertise, leaders create space for their teams to become subject matter experts themselves.
Sehgal emphasizes the importance of moving from tactical to strategic thinking. She describes how easy it is to get caught up in day-to-day firefighting—solving immediate problems, handling customer escalations, chasing big deals—but warns this approach prevents long-term organizational scaling. She personally blocks time each morning and evening to think strategically rather than just executing tactical work, and she advocates turning off emails and distractions during this time.
Progressing to senior management and director level brought additional surprises. As a manager of managers, her role shifted from leading a team focused on specific goals to managing a function with multiple teams pursuing different objectives. Her responsibility became breaking down silos across teams and connecting them to organizational priorities. She notes that this cross-functional collaboration—though never recognized with awards—directly benefits her own team through better enablement and understanding of customer needs.
When discussing how to build cross-functional relationships without organizational capital, Sehgal recommends starting with curiosity: simply having conversations with other teams to understand what they do, without necessarily making asks. Through this approach, she's discovered duplicated efforts and collaboration opportunities that benefit the entire organization.
Sehgal emphasizes two final lessons she learned the hard way. First, leadership requires making uncomfortable decisions that balance business and people needs, but these decisions are more palatable when communicated with empathy, clarity, and context explaining the rationale. Second, leadership doesn't have to fit a particular style or appearance—authentic leadership actually inspires others and makes the role more sustainable for the leader themselves.
About this episode
<p dir="ltr">Making the leap from top-performing individual contributor to effective leader is one of the toughest transitions to make as a Solutions professional. Host Avery Cochran sits down with Akanksha Sehgal, Director of Worldwide Technical Solutions at Omnisa, to explore why the skills that make you a great SE often don't translate to leadership. Akanksha shares her 13-year journey, from handling strategic accounts to leading global teams, and reveals the mindset shifts required at each stage of leadership growth.</p> <h2 dir="ltr">Follow Us</h2> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Connect with Avery Cochran: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/avery-cochran/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/avery-cochran/</a> </p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Connect with Akanksha Sehgal: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/akanksha-sehgal/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/akanksha-sehgal/</a> </p> </li> </ul> <h2 dir="ltr">Links and Resources Mentioned</h2> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Join Presales Collective Slack: <a href="https://www.presalescollective.com/slack">https://www.presalescollective.com/slack</a> </p> </li> </ul> <h2 dir="ltr">Key Topics Covered</h2> <ol> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">The Challenge of Moving from Expert SE to Leader</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Demonstrating Leadership Before Getting the Title</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Building Influence and Trust with Former Peers</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">How Success Metrics Change from IC to Manager</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">The "Smartest Person Trap" and Letting Your Team Shine</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Creating Strategic Thinking Time vs. Staying Tactical</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Progressing to Senior Leadership and Managing a Function</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Breaking Down Silos Through Cross-Functional Collaboration</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Making Hard Decisions and Balancing Business with People</p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr">Being Your Authentic Self as a Leader</p> </li> </ol>
Key Insights
- Being a top-performing individual contributor—including technical expertise, winning awards, and handling strategic accounts—does not prepare you for leadership, and most new leaders feel like 'a fish out of water' because the skills required are fundamentally different.
- Managers who continue trying to be the smartest person in the room and provide all the answers actually slow down their team's growth; intentionally stepping back and letting team members discover solutions builds true expertise across the team.
- Leaders who stay caught in tactical firefighting (solving immediate problems, chasing current deals) experience short-term success but prevent long-term organizational scaling and team development.
- Sehgal discovered that understanding each individual team member's unique aspirations, interests, and career goals—rather than assuming they want the same opportunities the manager did—is critical for building trust with former peers turned direct reports.
- Cross-functional collaboration and breaking down organizational silos, while rarely recognized or rewarded, directly amplifies the impact of your own team through better enablement, competitive intelligence, and customer understanding.
Topics
Transcript
There's that exciting moment that you get when you are going to move into your first pre-sales leader position. You're all excited. This is what you've been working for because you've got the expertise. You might even be a product expert. You could be moving in the same company into that first leadership role. You think you've got everything that it takes, but you realize not a lot of what you've been doing over your solutions career is leading you to be a good solutions leader. They're very different roles. I know I struggled with this when I first moved into a leadership position in solutions, and I've heard that this is one of the number one struggles in our…
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