

Leading Professionals
Laura Empson
Welcome to Leading Professionals. Join Professor Laura Empson as she talks to senior leaders from some of the world’s most successful professional organisations about the crucial issues they are currently facing.Each episode reveals the realities that lie beneath the ‘professional’ veneer these highly successful organisations, and their leaders, present to the outside world. Laura uses insights from her lifetime of researching and advising professional organisations to uncover and make sense of the complex, messy and surprisingly emotional challenges of leading professionals, and to identify key learning for all professionals.If you are a professional in a leadership role – or if you simply want to understand your work and your organisation better – then you have come to the right place. Be ready to explore new ideas, challenge your assumptions, and learn to see your world a little differently.Click the subscribe button and to be the first to get episodes of Leading Professionals as soon as they drop. About Professor Laura EmpsonLaura is widely recognised as one of the foremost thinkers in the fields of leadership and professional service firms. She has been conducting academic research into professional organizations for more than 30 years and acts as an advisor to the leaders of many of the world’s most successful professional organizations. Her focus is always on turning academic insights into practical action.She is Professor in the Management of Professional Service Firms at Bayes Business School, University of London, and Professor of Leadership and Organization at Copenhagen Business School. She also holds Research Fellowships at Harvard Law School and Cambridge University. Her most recent book is Leading Professionals: Power, Politics, and Prima Donnas (2022).Website: https://www.lauraempson.com/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadingProfessionalsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-laura-empson-69820773/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 2, 2023 • 36min
Steve Varley: Profiting from sustainability
Laura and Tony speak to Steve Varley, EY’s first Global Vice Chair for Sustainability. They find out how he was inspired by Greta Thunberg to try to build a bridge between environmentalism and capitalism, and the skills he used to make this happen. He explains how he created this role in EY to place sustainability at the heart of the firm’s business, and how he mobilised both colleagues and clients to build a significant sustainability practice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sep 28, 2023 • 5min
Welcome Back
Welcome back to Leading Professional People, the podcast that explores the most crucial leadership questions currently facing professional organisations. For this third series, Professor Laura Empson, who has dedicated almost 30 years to researching professionals and professional service firms, will be joined by a new co-host, Tony Hall, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the former Director General of the BBC. Laura and Tony’s guests include a fascinating selection of senior leaders from professional organisations, including EY, Slaughter & May, Spencer Stuart, INSEAD, the BBC, and MI6.Join them to explore the challenges, confusions, frustrations, and elations that make professional organisations so difficult to lead and so fascinating to understand. Follow this podcast so you never miss an episode. Find out more at lauraempson.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 26, 2021 • 31min
Leadership in the spotlight
Empson & Morley speak to Tony Hall, Lord Hall, about his time as Director General of the BBC, and his many other high-profile roles. They examine what it is like to lead complex organizations with multiple groups of stakeholders under intense public scrutiny. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 12, 2021 • 27min
Leadership value chain
How do you build better leaders in a professional service firm? Empson & Morley speak to Russ Hagey, Worldwide Chief Talent Officer of Bain. They explore Bain’s self-reinforcing leadership development system, and the way “insurgency” is both encouraged and controlled to strengthen the system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 28, 2021 • 33min
Ethics and leadership
Why do professionals do bad things? Empson & Morley speak to Professor Brooke Harrington of Dartmouth College, in the USA. They explore the factors which drive some professionals to behave unethically, and the organizational and societal factors which encourage it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 14, 2021 • 34min
Extreme collegiality
What is collegiality and how does it work in practice? Empson & Morley speak to Jill Ader, Chair of executive search and leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder. They examine how to create an environment of mutual support, cultural consistency, and equality among peers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 31, 2021 • 35min
Leadership duets
Barry Devereaux and Catherine Deane, Managing Partner and Chair of leading Irish law firm, McCann Fitzgerald, discuss the effectiveness of dual leadership structures in professional firms. They highlight the importance of having a support system, the significance of dual roles in leadership, and navigating leadership during the pandemic. They also provide advice for firms transitioning to a dual structure and emphasize the importance of conflict resolution and role dynamics in leadership partnerships.

May 17, 2021 • 30min
Post-pandemic Professionalism
How can leaders help their professionals prepare for the challenges and opportunities of post-pandemic professional work? Empson & Morley explore this theme with Nick Owen, Chair of Deloitte UK. They consider how hybrid working is calling into question some well-established “truths” about the nature of professionalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 22, 2021 • 35min
Collaboration in a Cold Climate
How do you create and sustain collaboration when you no longer meet each other face to face? Empson & Morley discuss this with Kirsten Edwards-Warren, Executive Vice President EMEA for Compass Lexecon. They examine the distinctive culture, systems, and structures the firm has developed to encourage collaboration and how it continued to thrive during the pandemic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 8, 2021 • 33min
Global versus Local
Philip Davidson, Global COO of KPMG, discusses achieving alignment in a global organization. They explore the tension between autonomy and belonging, referral and quality issues, the role of a global COO in a federated partnership, and mechanisms for consistency and accountability.


