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Leadership Development vs. Performance Acceleration: The Greatest ROI for Professional Services Partners
Despite data that shows companies spend over $100 billion annually on training, many professional services firms struggle to see measurable performance improvements in their Partners.
Traditional approaches to leadership development training often aren’t enough to accelerate Partner performance relative to the metrics that matter most like pipeline value, utilization, and revenue credit.
Furthermore, many firms invest heavily into formal L&D (training) initiatives that are classroom based—despite research that suggests those types of programs have the least impact on performance.
This article outlines the critical differences between leadership development and performance acceleration and explores how The Center for Creative Leadership’s (CCL) 70-20-10 Rule directs firms on how to invest in their Partners in a way that leads to accelerated performance.
Leadership Development vs. Performance Acceleration: What’s the difference?
What is Leadership Development?
According to CCL, the global leadership development researcher and provider, leadership is defined as: “a social process that enables individuals to work together to achieve results that they could never achieve working alone.”
Leadership development, therefore, focuses on helping people become better leaders. It is other-person oriented, emphasizing skills that foster team growth and inspire others to achieve a common goal. Core elements of leadership development include:
- Handling crucial conversations
- Enhancing communication and executive presence
- Building effective, collaborative teams
- Navigating change and fostering innovation
Leadership development is about improving someone’s effectiveness in organizing, inspiring, and navigating success within a team environment.
What is Performance Acceleration?
In contrast, performance acceleration is the process of leveraging strengths and addressing barriers to achieve high performance in the context of a specific role. It’s focused on an individual’s performance in their role at a point in time. Key components of performance acceleration include:
- Clearly defining role expectations and success metrics
- Using targeted psychometric insights from industry-specific assessments to understand individual tendencies
- Building tailored Traction Plans to leverage strengths and address barriers
- Using ongoing performance coaching to drive critical results quickly
Performance acceleration reduces Time to Traction—the time it takes someone to get up to speed in their role—so they perform better, faster relative to what’s most important in their role.
The Formula for Partner Performance in Professional Services
Partners face unique challenges that often require skillsets found outside of traditional leadership development programs.
The Verity Leadership Assessment™—the only assessment built specifically for professional services leadership—isolates the most significant traits and drivers of successful professional services firm Partners.
Backed by data from ~18,000 leaders who completed the Hogan Assessment suite, the Verity competency model identifies common traits of professional services Partners who perform in the top 20% of their peer group.
Those traits include:
- Business Development: Partners must drive sales growth, not just manage teams.
- Competitive Drive: High-performing Partners are driven to perform relative to their peers.
- Executive Impact: Partners must be able to command a room and influence strategic decision-makers.
- Trust & Collaboration: Effective communication, the ability to give and receive trust, and work collegially with others are critical to success.
- Service Orientation: High-stakes client relationships require a tailored approach to service delivery.
While traditional leadership development programs are a component of professional growth, they often lack the role context and personal relevance to spark measurable performance improvements for Partners in professional services firms.
Firms that prioritize a performance acceleration process backed by industry-specific assessment data often see faster growth in key metrics such as Time to Traction, pipeline development, and revenue generation.
Experiential Learning: The Key to Performance Acceleration
Across industries, L&D is a big budget item. CCL’s long-established 70-20-10 Rule for leadership development indicates that:
- 70% of learning is from job-related experiences
- 20% from interactions with others
- 10% from formal educational settings
Based on underlying research from Center for Creative Leadership, the “rule” emphasizes that most effective learning occurs through practical experiences and social interactions, with formal training having the least influence.
So, why do rational, business-minded leaders focus on funding (and participating in) formal training, when 90% of leadership development happens outside of formal settings?
Decades of experience in professional services has shown us that it’s because most organizations don’t have dedicated experiential learning resources. More importantly, they only budget for formal L&D initiatives (which may include experiential learning but are generally “classroom-heavy”).
Its not that experiential learning doesn’t happen. Rather, it often takes place informally, without metrics or intentional discipline to drive results. This leaves money on the table.
For a higher ROI on your L&D dollar, consider flipping the script to accelerate performance:
- For 70% (job-related experiences): Intentionally design tasks that close skill gaps and leverage strengths.
- For 20% (developmental relationships): Establish accountable mentoring relationships that provide real, performance-focused coaching.
- For 10% (formal education): Tailor formal educational offerings to meet specific learner needs, moving away from one-size-fits-all solutions.
This is why performance acceleration involves a more hands-on, experiential approach. It aligns to CCL’s proven research that suggests 90% of development happens outside the classroom.
Where to Invest for Maximum Partner Performance ROI
Ultimately, if the goal is to help Partners perform better, faster, professional services firms are more likely to see a direct ROI through performance acceleration compared to leadership development. That’s not to say leadership development isn’t important – because it is – but the two often lead to different outcomes.
Leadership development prepares Partners to inspire others, foster collaboration, and grow as a collective. On the other hand, performance acceleration focuses on improving performance related to the role at a specific point in time.
To unlock Partner potential and drive firm growth, professional services firms should prioritize investing in performance acceleration strategies built on experiential learning. Doing so will enhance overall ROI on Partner development.
That’s the approach we take at Kinavic Leadership Acceleration. Contact us today to discuss how to apply our proven performance acceleration strategies in your firm.
Angela Navarro
Angela has dedicated her entire career to accelerating performance – of leaders, clients, and firms. She has a true passion for maximizing the potential of executive talent to drive measurable improvements, including greater return on human capital investments, sustainable practice growth, and increased diversity.
