And You Still Think You’re In Control!
Command & Control leadership worked…
when the world moved slowly enough to obey it.
Like in the early years of World War 2.
It doesn’t work now.
In modern warfare… that style of leadership (known as ‘C2’) gets people killed.
In UK financial planning… it quietly kills firms.
Think this has nothing to do with your firm?
Just look at your last team meeting.
Recently a colleague and I were discussing a high-profile financial planning leader.
C2 Leadership is their default.
Their style is to dominate the airtime in every meeting.
And to persuasively ensure that their agenda is supported – and acted upon… every time.
Because they’re articulate, charismatic and strong willed…
they fool themselves that they’re orchestrating their team behind a pioneering, courageous vision.
What they’re really doing…
is controlling supremely intelligent people…
using their title and power, their energy and conviction.
What they fail to see is that the silence of others in those meetings isn’t agreement.
it’s usually the absence of space to think clearly.
The Quiet voices – with piercing questions and insights – never get heard.
Over time… they stop offering them.
And a team that stops thinking…
slowly becomes a team that waits.
Waits for direction.
Waits for approval.
Waits for the leader.
And a firm built on waiting…
is a firm that can’t adapt… can’t grow… can’t lead.
What’s been squeezed out… squashed… pulverized…
is independent thinking.
And when firm after firm behaves like this…
we get what we now see across the whole profession.
The Advice Gap…
Consumer Duty being misunderstood…
Talented people quietly leaving – or not starting in the first place…
Consolidation bringing standardisation…
that kills individual excellence… energy… passion.
All point to the same issue.
Lack of distributed, independent thinking.
Our world today is demanding individual judgment…
and we’re still building firms – large and small – that suppress it.
It’s not surprising that this state of affairs has arisen.
Just think of how financial planning firms start and grow.
A technically excellent financial planner – usually a middle aged man – launches on their own… or through a network.
Suddenly, just months later, they find themselves with a small team surrounding them.
And everyone is looking to them for instructions.
To avoid falling into chaos… they become the bottleneck.
Not just for ideas.
But for planning and detailed execution.
Controlling is the only way they know to survive.
Nobody taught them any different.
In fact, when it comes to leadership…
nobody taught them anything!
Now, they might learn to abandon total control…
and replace it with energy… vision… conviction.
But nothing has really changed.
They’re still the loudest voice in the room.
In 20th century warfare, that thinking eventually led to disaster – at the cost of millions of lives.
Now imagine something different.
Imagine a team that doesn’t wait.
A team that doesn’t look up, every time a decision is needed.
Because they’re clear…
not about compliant process…
but on what ‘Good’ looks like for the client.
They don’t need permission.
Because they’ve been trusted to think.
Decisions happen where the information lives…
In the conversation.
In the relationship.
In real time.
These are the firms that stayed calm when markets dropped.
Because they already knew how to think.
And the leader?
No longer the centre of everything.
Rather, they’re the one who made it all possible.
So…
What of the strong-willed leader we started with today?
Well, they’ll continue getting their own way.
What they’ll be blind to is that the best, most creative, most daring thinking of their team…
has been quietly switched off.
Team members obeying because they have to.
Because they like the leader enough that they don’t wish to rock the boat.
Such a business – led in this way – is paralysed.
And not just in numbers.
The team members who’ve been given a lovely title (to keep them happy and engaged)…
won’t know how to truly lead… when the inevitable day finally arrives.
And another firm bites the dust.
Swallowed up by deep pockets, strong centralization, tightly controlled corporate culture, compliance manuals bigger than the British Library.
Whether through command… or charisma… far too many financial planning leaders still control the thinking.
Most leaders I’ve met don’t lack vision…
they lack the courage to stop being the centre of the thinking.
They enter every room with commitment.
The commitment to being right!
Individually, and industry wide… it shows.
And once you see it… you can’t unsee it.
The future belongs to those with the guts enough to let go.
To those who create the conditions…
where others learn to think better.
More strategically. More deeply. More clearly.
And then act without constantly seeking permission.
That, right there… That’s the Soul Millionaire way.
