10 qualities of trusted advisors

If you work in management and leadership development, you are an advisor. Your job is to help managers and leaders become more effective, either through programmatic work or direct coaching.

What makes a trusted advisor? How can you build trust with the managers and leaders you support?

I recently listened to the book Trusted Advisor by Maister, Green, and Galford, three longtime professional services operators.

They shared 10 qualities of trusted advisors, paraphrased below:

1. Focus on the client, not themselves
2. View the client as an individual
3. Work towards problem resolution, not content mastery
4. Have a competitive drive to always be of greater service
5. Do the next right thing, not overly tied to specific outcomes
6. Are motivated to do the right thing, above the interests of their firm
7. View models, methodologies, techniques, and processes as means to an end –– and to be discarded if not helpful for the specific client
8. Believe success in client relationships is tied to accumulation of quality experiences –– and thus welcome client interaction
9. Believe both selling and serving are aspects of professionalism
10. Recognize the distinction between private and business life and that both are personal and often overlapping

One theme is that “one size fits all” does not work for being a trusted advisor. Each situation is different; each person is different. This fits with the experience of becoming a manager –– challenges are unique and highly context-dependent. Similarly, one-size-fits-all manager development is not very effective.

What do you think? What themes do you see? How have you become a trusted advisor to the managers you develop? How have you tailored manager development to your organization’s context?

Need to develop managers at your company? Learn about Jhana’s bite-sized learning and training for managers at www.jhana.com.