How To Manage An Effective Team With A Managerial Leadership Role with Julian Chapman

Who is Julian Chapman?

Julian Chapman brings over three decades of experience in the managerial leadership role. He started his career as a young private soldier in the Canadian army, and decided to change career paths due to poor leadership. 

"I didn't like the way the leaders were behaving at the time. I thought I could do it better. Boy was I wrong!" Says Chapman.

Learning from a multitude of mistakes along the way, Chapman found himself in the career of leadership development. 

"As we say in Canada, I had one foot in the canoe and one foot on land. In other words, I had a civilian career and I had a military career, because I did a lot of my service as a reservist. He currently runs a business in Toronto, Canada centered around managerial leadership. 

Chapman can be reached through his website, managerialleadershipjourney.com.

Closing the Disconnect- Our Teams And Main Goals

According to Chapman there's one of three reasons for disconnection in leadership management.

1. In the post Covid era people and the switch to work from home, people have been working hard, but they may have been working hard on the wrong things due to being away from the workplace.

Chapman suggests that this is where managerial leadership is important-they can help add value to the work being done by clearly defining work expectation. 

2. Prioritizing the wrong things

Chapman finds that many of his clients are terrible at prioritization. Prioritization comes with risk. Strong leadership can help with this.

3. Lack of clarity

Many of Chapmans clients lack clarity on the strategies that are used. He states that most clients do not have a plan for their exit. Other questions business owners should ask themselves are what are we trying to achieve? This will help with making better business choices.

How Do We Reflect In A Busy Environment?

According to Chapman, reflection is a critical part of the growth process. "It's about making time to reflect. One of the things that I often say to my clients is that, we are all victims of this imbalance, but we're also perpetrators of the imbalance," says Chapman.

How Can a Lack of Clarity Impact An Accounting Firm?

A lack of clarity means you are not adding value to your CPA firm. 

"We may feel personally responsible, a personal feeling of obligation to do things that are not adding value because we have always done these things," says Chapman.

Clarity is needed from leadership for positive change to occur. "Employees need to know what they are actually accountable for as opposed to what they feel personally responsible for," says Chapman.

Chapman says that it's a matter of sitting down and actually engaging with employees to find out and being clear on what it is that you need them to do.

"This starts the process of true managerial leadership," says Chapman. 

According to Chapman this means sitting down with your employees and telling them exactly what it is that you need them to do. The managerial leader has to carve out the time to make this possible.



"Get into your calendar and block off time to actually do this. It's about working on the business rather than working in the business. In order to be truly successful, you have to work on the business. In other words, clarify the work and the expectations," says Chapman.

Accountability

As a general guideline Chapman advises you spend about an hour per employee to define their accountabilities, not the activities that they do, but what they are actually accountable to deliver on their end. This creates a more responsive and engaged employee while enabling them to use their own judgement and discretion.



"They may come up with better solutions than you would have," says Chapman

Quantity, Quality, Time and Resources

Quantity, quality, time and resources or QQTR is a powerful tool to help both leaders and employees reach their goals. Broken down QQR looks like this:

• How much of something is needed.
• What is the nature of the quality of that? 
• When does it need to be delivered? 
• What are the resources that an individual has?

"A lot of organizations talk about smart goals and things like this, but the value of this QQTR is that as circumstances change, we adjust," says Chapman.

Chapman adds that all work is the exercise of judgement and discretion. The employee and managers will use their judgement and discretion in how they do their work.



He notes that many of his clients who are CPAs struggle with this— even though they have vast technical know-how, most CPAs lack management skills.

How Managerial Leaders Are Hurting Their Relationships?

• Leaving people to work without  guidance. 
• Lack of engagement with employees.
• Being unaware of their employees and not promoting their welfare.

The idea of work and life being two separate things is a fallacy. When we're in our work mode, our lives are impacted. Chapman strongly advises engaging your people and knowing their strengths, their weaknesses, and everything in between. "As we say to leaders, you need to be able to define who you are, why you're here, and what you're trying to do," says Chapman.

Final Words Of Wisdom from Julian Chapman

"Technical know-how is really important, particularly for CPAs. However If you want your business to truly flourish, and if you have managers underneath you, then you need to spend more time focusing on how well they're managing and leading, rather than their technical output," says Chapman. 

Chapman is the author of the book The Managerial Leadership Journey: An Unconventional Business Pursuit, which addresses  the lack of professionalism in managerial leadership.

"It's an ongoing journey and I've been doing it for a long time. I learn every day," says Chapman.

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Julian Chapman​​

Julian Chapman has over thirty years of education and experience in helping leaders engage teams and organizations, from small groups to thousands of employees in order to help build their leadership capabilities.