When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance

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Description

For too long, professional services firms have relied on the "producer-manager" model, which works well in uncomplicated business environments. However, today's managing directors must balance often conflicting roles, more demanding clients, tougher competitors, and associates with higher expectations of partners at all levels.
When Professionals Have to Lead presents an overarching framework better suited to such complexity. It identifies the four critical activities for effective PSF leadership: setting strategic direction, securing commitment to this direction, facilitating execution, and setting a personal example. Through examples from consulting practices, accounting firms, investment banks, and other professional service organizations, industry veterans DeLong, Gabarro, and Lees show how this model works to:
Align your firm's culture and key organizational components.
Satisfy your clients' needs without sacrificing essential managerial responsibilities.
Address matters of size, scale, and complexity while maintaining the qualities that make professional services firms unique.
A valuable new resource, this book redefines the role of leadership in professional services firms.

Author Bio

Thomas J. DeLong is Professor of Management in the entrepreneurial management and organizational behavior groups at the Harvard Business School. Before joining the Harvard Faculty, Tom was Chief Development Officer and Managing Director of Morgan Stanley Group, Inc., where he was responsible for the human capital of the firm. He focused on issues of organizational strategy, development and organizational change, and he continues to advise the President on strategic human capital issues. Before joining the firm full time, Tom consulted for Morgan Stanley and served as advisor to the Operating Committee. Professor DeLong teaches MBA courses focused on professional service firms and organizational behavior. In the arena of executive education at Harvard he teaches Achieving Breakthrough Service, Leadership in Professional Services, Senior Human Resource Management, and Strategic Perspectives in NonProfit Management. Professor DeLong has taught in various executive education programs in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Professor DeLong's primary area of focus centers on the changing nature of professional service firms. He has created an MBA course which addresses the management of organizational capabilities and opportunities in the context of a changing environment for professional service firms.