who needs to see you lead?
by martin bissett
passport to partnership
in order to become a commercially aware practice leader, we need to understand the dna of leadership.
more: 10 questions for reconsidering your prices | five reasons firms don’t thrive | four biz dev tasks to start the new year | what the next generation of practice leaders faces | five ways to show commitment | selling isn’t hard | do you make your firm look good?
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any woman or man leading an accounting firm, who chooses to overcome each operational or client challenge as it if their future depended on it, will not only succeed in practice but will become capable of delivering advisory value to their clients unmatched by their competitors, thus achieving true differentiation.
there has been enough behavioral evidence in practice management now observed, collated and reported upon to be able to draw a conclusion that a great leader needs to be at peace internally in order to become a great leader externally. her or his personnel/staff need to see a consistency between that leader’s values and his/her most commonly perceived behaviors.
i recall a tremendous example seen on the tottenham court road in london back in the early nineties. the scene is an electronic goods store where the owner had idolesque status from employees and customers alike. he achieved that by building an empire from the ground up (the archetypal entrepreneur who started with nothing) while treating employees like partners in the business in terms of responsibility and reward, from the very beginning.
the myth and legend surrounding that owner had grown out of proportion and yet whenever i sat with him as a supplier to his business, he was humble, enthusiastic but devoid of any apparent ego.
i happened to be in store during the rise of a major dispute between an obnoxious-sounding customer making a fairly insignificant purchase and a store employee who was unquestionably in the right. as the argument escalated, the store owner quickly saw a number of threats to his business including the potential knock-on repercussions, depending how this situation was resolved, with potential lost income from other customers currently in store.
his act was swift and simple. he approached the store employee, thanked him by handshake for dealing with the situation to this point, before introducing himself to the irate customer and in gentle tones, taking the sting out of the complainant while walking him out of the store with arm placed non-threateningly over his shoulder.
simple enough, had it ended there. however, once the patron was out of the store, the owner then returned, apologized to all other customers in store and with a cheeky grin added, “our customers are always right … except that one.”
this got a laugh all around, which removed any lingering awkwardness. then with the crowd still watching, he approached the store employee involved in the original dispute, told him how well he felt he’d handled the customer and immediately made him employee of the month (where such a program carried considerable gravitas in terms of its rewards and chances for promotion).
who in that high-end central london shop is now left anything other than impressed with a millionaire store owner, who in five minutes has
- demonstrated a willingness to work at the front end,
- diffused a potentially damaging situation and
- congratulated/motivated an employee without giving anything away commercially in order to achieve it?
i asked the owner how he continually demonstrated such a cheery disposition in these circumstances and almost flippantly he looked me in the eye and replied, “what’s the alternative?”