A client and friend, who is a senior capital markets professional, asked me to recommend some books on leadership.  With their permission, I’ve published my response that reflects on both leadership and management within an institutional brokerage.

 

A couple items for you, these are more focused on management rather than leadership, but I'd recommend:

• The e Myth Revisited, by Michael Gerber
• This presentation or the website jobs.netflix.com/culture, by Reed Hastings, Chairman/President/CEO/Co-Founder of Netflix

The approach in the two recommendations couldn’t be more different. The Netflix approach is what everyone wants to implement but will struggle to achieve unless they have a currency, like NFLX stock, that allows you to attract, hire, and retain the very best. The eMyth focuses on a more practical approach that all business can implement.

 

I’ve actually thought about leadership quite a bit from the perspective of a sellside brokerage.  Brokerages are funny animals because you have a lot of very intelligent people, with strong business acumen, that are essentially paid to come up with interesting, entertaining, insightful and unique perspectives on situations multiple times per day, and distribute that perspective to their clients in a manner that compels action.

 

This makes brokerages very difficult to manage since the staff will extrapolate information very quickly, work through multiple permutations, gravitate towards worst case outcomes (because they are the most interesting), and distribute the information very quickly.  This creates a vicious cycle that can iterate shockingly fast.

 

A related challenge, is that staff will make recommendations or argue that specific course of action is best, based on their limited visibility to a specific situation. It’s kind of like the staff is looking at a playing field through a straw and making very sound recommendations based on what they can see, without realizing they can’t see a lot of what is actually going on. It takes a lot of time and effort to broaden people’s perspectives, and some people will struggle to understand that they might not have all the information. You also need to constantly be aware that you likely can’t seeing the entire playing field either.

 

So the principals I tried to operate with were:

• Competence has gravity.
• Try to be the example, every minute of every day.
• Exhibit and praise behaviors you’d like to see repeated and be very critical of ineffective behaviors.
• Give people the information that you’d want to be given if the situation was reversed; A-players will always appreciate candor.
• The game repeats so doing the right thing for the client will often drive the best outcome for all stakeholders in the long run. (Note: ‘the right’ thing isn’t necessarily what the client wants).

 

Hopefully that helps and I haven’t overstepped.

 

More than happy to discuss.

 

Delli (delli@cibc.com)

 

Disclaimer: This information, including any opinion, is based on various sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy cannot be guaranteed and is subject to change. CIBC and CIBC World Markets Inc., their affiliates, directors, officers, and employees may buy, sell, or hold a position in securities of a company mentioned herein, its affiliates or subsidiaries, and may also perform financial advisory services, investment banking or other services for, or have lending or other credit relationships with the same. CIBC World Markets Inc. and its representatives will receive sales commissions and a spread between the bid and ask prices if you purchase, sell, or hold the securities referred to above. © CIBC World Markets Inc. 2020