Leading Professional People

By: Laura Empson and Tony Hall
  • Summary

  • Professor Laura Empson and Tony Hall, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, explore the crucial leadership questions currently facing professional organisations and their leaders. They uncover the complicated, messy and surprisingly emotional challenges of leading professionals.

     

    Laura and Tony interview senior leaders from some of the most successful global professional organisations, including EY, Slaughter & May, MI6, Spencer Stuart and the BBC. 

     

    And they build on their own insights from their lifetimes of researching, leading, and advising professional organisations.

     

    Each episode reveals the complex realities that lie beneath the ‘professional’ veneer that these highly successful organisations, and their leaders, present to the outside world.

     

    This podcast is for any professional who has, or aspires to have, a leadership role – who wants to explore new ideas, challenge assumptions, and develop solutions.

     

    Find out more at https://www.lauraempson.com


    Laura Empson is Professor in the Management of Professional Service Firms at Bayes Business School, University of London, and holds Research Fellowships at Harvard Law School and Cambridge University. She has been conducting academic research into professional organisations for 30 years and acts as an advisor to the leaders of many of the world’s leading professional organisations. Her most recent book is: Leading Professionals: Power, Politics, and Prima Donnas. https://www.lauraempson.com


    Tony Hall, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, is a cross-bench member of the House Of Lords. He was Director General of the BBC, President of the European Broadcasting Union, Chairman of the National Gallery, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, Deputy Chair of Channel 4 and Chair of the Cultural Olympics for London 2012. He now chairs Frontline, a charity that trains social workers, is Deputy Chair of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and a trustee of the National Trust and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. 


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Laura Empson
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Episodes
  • David Bickford: Spies as professionals
    Dec 11 2023
    What are the parallels between the worlds of espionage and professional services? Laura and Tony talk to David Bickford, previously General Counsel to MI5 and MI6, about his role as the agencies’ Legal Director and Under Secretary of State. They explore how to build trust when professionals are working remotely, how to collaborate when knowledge is shared on a need-to-know basis, and how to stop powerful professionals from going rogue.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    28 mins
  • Katherine White: Leading discretely
    Nov 27 2023
    Laura and Tony speak to Katherine White, the first Chief Talent Officer of global executive search firm, Spencer Stuart. They explore the challenges of being a senior leader when you are not a fee-earner, and of leading the so-called talent when the fee-earners themselves do not see you as the talent. Katherine explains how she built trust and influence, and how she learnt to add value quickly while working slowly and discretely to bring about change.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    35 mins
  • Gianpiero Petriglieri: Coming out of the psychological closet
    Nov 13 2023
    Gianpiero Petriglieri, Associate Professor at INSEAD, is ranked as one of the top 50 management thinkers in the world. Laura and Tony talk to him about the difficult emotions that often stay hidden and suppressed in organisations and individuals, and how leaders of professional organisations can become more effective when they engage more directly with these emotions. 

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    36 mins

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