Financial Advisor Leadership: It's All About Responsibility

“Leadership is any position where you take responsibility for a group with a mission to fulfill.”…Bob Joss

Last month, Bob Joss retired as the dean of the Stanford Business School. From many angles, his 10-year career as dean, 1999-2009, was a raving success. He energized faculty and alumni after a period of extended malaise. In the face of the boom-bust of the dot-com era, he tripled the school's endowment to $1 billion. He launched a new, highly-personalized, MBA curriculum with emphasis on global content and leadership development.

As dean of one of the world’s best business schools, Bob Joss has had access to the thoughts of the world’s most highly-regarded business leaders, e.g. Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, Eric Schmidt, etc. As such, Dean Joss has an extraordinary and insightful perspective on leaders and leadership. In a culminating presentation that capped his career at Stanford, entitled, "Leadership Means Responsibility", Bob Joss shares the views from his unique vantage point…that reflect the observations culled from his 40+-year career. Some interesting thoughts include:

“At the top, it’s not about you…it’s about them.”

“Leaders find the words.”

“One can lead with no more than with a question in hand.”

“Transforming through others is the job at any level.”

For financial advisors and sales leaders, leadership is an important (and often overlooked) skill. When one considers the opportunities for advisors to lead, I can identify (at least) five different opportunities for financial advisors to do so:

• They lead their team (even if it’s a team of two).
• They lead their clients.
• They lead their prospective future clients.
• They lead within their office.
• They lead within their communities.

In future posts, we will further investigate these Five Leaderships…especially from the perspective of financial leaders and sales leaders. Stay tuned.

Best to you…