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O P I N I O N
Promote risk-taking For the next generation of leaders to be successful, they’ll need a mindset sculpted by strategy, new ideas, and a willingness to embrace the unknown.
I routinely hear AEC firm leaders express frustration about finding the next generation of leaders. Their feelings are understandable when so many firms continue to be led by founding or legacy partners who are in their late 50s or early 60s and want to move on to a different life stage.
Julie Benezet
Their comments on the next generation include: ❚ ❚ “So many of our people don’t have the DNA to be entrepreneurial.” ❚ ❚ “They’re so risk averse.” ❚ ❚ “They just don’t get the broader picture of business.” ❚ ❚ “They focus on the bottom instead of the top line.” ❚ ❚ “They just sit in the comfort of their desks doing projects instead of going out there to see what’s hap- pening.” Sound familiar? To be sure, there are some serious practical issues that complicate leadership transition: The Great Recession eroded firm coffers needed to repurchase senior partner stock, downward pressure on fees in an increasingly fickle market hurts profitability, and leadership development was deferred due to slashed
recession era training budgets. These are real issues that must be addressed. “To succeed as a leader you must pursue ideas whose outcome is unknown. That can be scary, and as a leader you need to be okay with that. That is the leadership mindset.” However, there is a larger leadership transition issue. That issue is building a leadership mindset. It is trickier to solve, as it involves human behavior, and yet it’s essential to developing the next generation of leaders.
See JULIE BENEZET, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER February 13, 2017, ISSUE 1187
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