All Successful Business Partners Are “Leaders”

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It is 3 PM on a Wednesday afternoon and Jeff, a Finance Business Partner at a global pharma company, is getting ready for the monthly business review with the R&D team. They are to discuss the latest developments on three of their most promising drugs and review progress vs. milestones as well as spend. 

The full R&D leadership team is present but there is also a guest joining this month. It is Lisa, a Finance Director, and Jeff’s manager. Lisa is there to observe the meeting and focus on how Jeff runs the meeting, how strong his relationships are, and how he communicates with the leadership team. 

The day before the meeting Jeff and Lisa sat down to talk about Jeff’s personal development. Jeff is already a strong business partner who is taking charge of his own development. He is very energetic and always seems fully engaged in his work. During the talk, they agree on the key points that Lisa should observe for. Jeff is especially keen on getting feedback on his relationship with the Head of R&D. 

Jeff does very well in the business review and Lisa sees how he has developed a strong rapport with the Head of R&D. Clearly, this is having a positive impact on R&D’s performance and driving value for the company. Lisa shares this feedback in a coaching session with Jeff after the meeting. She shares a handful of points that Jeff did well but also an observation that for Jeff to become even better he needs to work more on the full leadership team and not just the head of R&D. 

Jeff leaves the session with an incredible boost of confidence because he got a lot of positive feedback and knows what he needs to work on to reach the next level! 

What Jeff and Lisa just did is exemplary of how individual business partners and their leaders should take charge of business partnering development. Leading business partners requires a different approach than how we have traditionally led the finance function. Moreover, it also requires more personal leadership from individuals. That is why we have made Leadership Skills a distinct part of our business partnering capability model. We see three specific skills to develop. 

What is your leadership competence level? 

Historically, in Finance, we have led people through systems, processes, and checklists. If they were all green probably, we had done our job correctly. However, you cannot lead business partners like this. Business partnering is an activity that happens together with other people and therefore the only way to lead business partners is to observe them in action. Moreover, it also requires more of the individual because they can never be a success on their own. Only if their stakeholders succeed, they have a chance to succeed. This requires great personal leadership to strive for such goals. Lastly, we are on a change journey towards successful business partnering and require everyone to lead the change. Here is how you can evaluate your competence level in each of the skills further considering the four levels of foundational, intermediate, advanced, and expert.

This should give you some pointers to identify how competent you are when it comes to leadership skills. If you would like a more in-depth evaluation, then reach out and we are happy to provide individual coaching sessions as well as team assessments. 

How can you develop your leadership skills? 

No matter how competent you are you can always develop further. We leverage the 70/20/10 strategy for suggesting ways of developing your leadership skills. Here are some of these suggestions. 

These are but a few suggestions and there are many ways to develop your leadership skills. We recommend that you now perform a gap analysis and start working on your development plan. If you want an outside-in view on your situation then do not hesitate to contact us. 

Are you ready to take personal ownership of leading towards business partnering success? It will require a different approach to leadership and in many ways force you to unlearn what you thought to be good leadership throughout your entire career. It will not be easy but at least it is simple to understand what you need to develop and how to develop it. We need stronger leadership in the finance function especially if we are to succeed in business partnering. Are you up for the challenge?

Business Partnering Institute can help you become better at leading yourself, change, and others! You can reach us at [email protected] or get directly in touch with Anders on +45 2926 6410 and start your journey today!

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This was the fifth and final article in the series about the Business Partnering Capability Model. You can read previous articles in the series below.

The Business Partnering Capability Model

Analytical Skills Are The Key To Generating Insights

Here Is What Business Partners Need To Know About Their Business

Business Partnering Is About People...

If you want to become a better business partner you should consider taking our online course "Business Partnering Explained - Value Creation Unlocked" to get a better handle on the role. It's accredited for 5.5 CPD hours.

You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum which is part of the Business Partnering Institute's online community where we will continue to discuss this topic and you can click here to follow me on Twitter.

Should We Keep Talking About Business Partnering? (part of a 17-article series where we deep-dive on the WHY, WHAT and HOW of business partnering by putting it on a formula)

Your Journey To Successful Business Partnering Explained

How To Create Value Through Business Partnering

Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)

From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)

Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)

How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)

The Future Of FP&A: Two Ways To Take The Reins

What Is The Accounting Profession Paradox?

What Defines A Finance Master?

The New Career Path For Finance Professionals

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance

How To Become A Finance Business Partner

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

Finance Business Partner Is A Bullshit Job

How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder, COO (Chief Operating Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with close to 9,000 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger on LinkedIn with 48.000+ followers.