For over 33 years I have been involved with professional services businesses in one way or another. Writes Christopher Honeyman Brown.My experience of leadership is overwhelmingly that professional service businesses veer away from the specific development of leadership skills. Moreover, the same approach is taken to management skills and the net result is that many professional service firms fail to deliver to their true potential.
What though is the difference between the two? Neither lends itself to a simple, trite definition that can be learned and practised. There is often confusion, with many people thinking that are the same thing or at least parts of the same - when they most definitely are not. One thing is certain - the very word "leader" gives a clue to the sense of its definition; it is about the leadership of others. My own offering for a definition is that leadership is about the inter-activity of one person on others to achieve goals; whereas management is about utilising resources to the best effect in the process of achievement.
There are a number of words I associate with leadership: vision, creativity, inspiration, influence, empowerment, confidence, trust, direction, purpose, alignment, encouragement, steadfastness and tolerance. You will see that there are distinct groups within this mini lexicon. Vision, creativity, inspiration are all reflective of the need for the leader to develop a clear idea of what it is the organisation is seeking to be, or trying to do, before imparting that vision to others in a way which gains their acceptance of, and belief in, the vision. The vision may require creativity, if not in the sense of something new, then in the way that an old idea is re-addressed and expressed. The ability to characterise the idea in such a way that others not only understand it but can believe it - and believe that they are capable of achieving it - is at the core of leadership. This aspect does not have to match the inspirational leadership of Martin Luther King - inspiration can be quietly demonstrative as well as noisily emotive. Without the ability to inspire others to achieve, a leader will have difficulty getting the team to pick up their part of the responsibilities and follow - because yes, leaders lead and others follow.
The power to influence is an integral part of the leader's toolkit. Influencing is about converting other people's ideas and beliefs towards the common goals of the vision. A leader needs to be able to carry the team; it may be alright in the Armed Forces for senior ranks to impose orders on junior ranks, but in today's business world senior or managing partners who try this approach will soon be back in the ranks. Influence is about persuasion and demonstration of the vision itself and of the way best to achieve it.
Empowerment, confidence and trust are also essential ingredients of the leadership recipe. Empowerment is a relatively new word - some would say jargon - but it is descriptive of the need to give individuals the sense that they have the authority to go off and deliver their individual and collective parts of the business vision. There is a clear implication that empowerment will result in barriers being removed and obstacles overcome with the help, if need be, of the leadership team. Empowerment effectively means that the leadership team will provide individuals with the tools, resources and processes to get the job done.
That leads on to the sense of confidence and trust that leaders need to give to their people. Confidence is two way - confidence that the leadership is not taking the team down an impossible path - the people have to believe that the objectives are realistic and sensible for the business. At the same time they have to have the confidence in themselves that they can deliver their part of the plan. At the outset, when new plans are unfurled, partners are likely to examine them in detail and debate them with the leadership. From this detailed examination they get confidence that the plan is appropriate, and from that confidence they will begin to trust that the leadership's vision is the right one for them. When changes are made or decisions taken as part of the implementation this trust will be important to maintain the confidence of the team and minimise the need constantly to re-examine everything in detail.
Direction, purpose and alignment are all part of a set. It is never good enough to have a vision - perhaps expressed through stirring oratory - without also being able to express how the vision is going to be implemented. This ability to see the first steps along the path of implementation is an essential ingredient in building team confidence. The detail of the implementation gives substance to the vision and expresses the practical aspects of the vision in a way that people can understand and accept as realistic. Alignment is again one of those words that many dismiss as jargon. But it merely summarises what is an obvious essential for any well run business. There is no point trying to portray the business, say, as a cutting edge high-tech business with first class people, if the computer systems are 5 years old and there is no formalized training programme. The leadership job is to make sure that, throughout the business, policies and processes are reviewed and amended to make sure that in every nook and cranny the business works in support of the overall vision and objectives.
These are the essential elements of leadership - of course the mix and depth required in any given circumstance will vary and other skills and abilities may need to be added. The final challenge faced by any organisation is to make sure that the best leader for the given circumstance is the one who gets the job. Here professional service firms have yet another hurdle to leap. Most firms appoint their leaders - whether senior partner or managing partner - by some form of election. Where the process is merely an election with individuals nominating themselves - either in a belief in their ability or in pursuit of power and status - it is entirely possible that the person chosen will not have leadership experience, training or skills. Some can learn them on the job - and to some extent the business will mark time while they do - others never recognise the need to change and the business mirrors that failure.
Personal skills are a vital part of the resources available to a business in pursuit of its business plan - and this is especially so in a professional service business. Why is it that so few partnerships are prepared to invest the time and energy needed to enhance the personal skills of its senior people and make sure there is a proper leadership development programme from which the leaders of tomorrow can emerge?
Management is altogether different to leadership. Management as described above, is all about making sure that the business has the resources to implement its plans, that the resources are properly deployed and that they deliver the key performance targets required for the business to meet its objectives.
This may sound simple but in modern partnerships there are a number of challenging hurdles for managers to overcome. Matching the needs and demands of clients to the services offered, the skills available and the numbers of people to deal with the volume of work is in itself enough of a challenge for most. The need to reduce the cost of transactions - i.e. services offered - by introducing new work processes, developing knowledge libraries, creating processes to share precedents and expertise is paramount as salary costs rise while client pressures force fees to fall.
Developing the firm's market position, making sure that it consistently represents its market position and services to its marketplace and its clients, both existing and potential, requires the business manager to have an inherent understanding of strategic positioning and marketing. Moreover the skills of the people have to be developed to make sure they are capable, not just of delivering the service proposition to clients, but also of delivering it better than the opposition in a way which delights the client and helps to retain the on-going relationship.
With premises costs likely to start climbing again, especially in London where the last few years have seen stagnation in yields and rent cost, managers have to find ways of reducing the cost of premises and all the associated infrastructure cost of running large bricks and mortar service delivery systems. How will technology be able to help reduce the fixed cost of establishment over the next few years?
Finance has to be managed - it is the partners who invest the money either through capital or through retained profits - they invest not just in offices and technology, but also in working capital - the amounts they are owed by their clients for unbilled costs and fees outstanding as well as disbursements. Partners always seem to think that collection of money for work done for clients is someone else's job - never theirs.
I have yet to find a partnership where all the ills of the business are not laid at management's door. Individually and in their twos and threes, partners refer to "them" - management - as being responsible for poor performance, failing cashflow, lost clients, loss of star performers and so on. It is this sense of disassociation of the individual partner from accountability for performance that is at the heart of many partnership failures.
And it is this attitude which is the biggest challenge for all leaders and managers of professional service businesses. It is their job to inspire their people to identify their role, have the confidence to discharge it and to organise them into an effective force to take the marketplace by storm and rout the competition. It is also their job to make sure the leaders and managers of tomorrow are being trained and honed into shape so they can take their place in future - not by some form of politically influenced election, but by right.
Christopher Honeyman Brown is Head of the Professional Practices Group at Horwath Clark Whitehill. Before that he was the Chief Executive at Alsop Wilkinson, leading that firm into its merger to form Dibb Lupton Alsop. He can be contacted at:
T: +44 (0) 20 7353 1577
E:honeymac@horwathcw.co.uk
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