With management talent available as holding companies consolidate, it is tempting for agencies to import stars to take over key specialties—hoping to give the business an instant boost.

That may prove a mistake, as it has for some pro sports teams that have attempted to buy a championship roster—several of which reversed course to build from within. Agencies will do better to promote specialty chiefs from across the agency to develop broader, deeper leadership. 

The pressure on agencies to drive business results has never been higher. Industries grow more complex as media infrastructure expands, audiences multiply and lower barriers to entry online invite more kinds of competitors. Add the requirement to achieve more with less and winning requires more systemic marketing coordination than ever. We need to do more and more complicated things and need to do them faster. Such coordination takes a more integrated approach and tighter teamwork. Key people with broader vision and trust put you on the fast track because getting there is equally about talent and culture. 

What’s more, cross-promoting leaders fortifies institutional intelligence that clients need desperately. As client ranks shrink and their people change out, they lose the experience that can safeguard strategy. Continuity at an agency bridges discontinuity at a client. Agency teams are often on the business longer than any of their clients. 

Here are four key ways to develop broad, deep agency leadership:

Cohesion counts

The faster marketing moves, the more agencies need to treat culture as a core capability. Things move too fast, and we no longer have the advantage of everyone on top of each other in an office every day. Our defense is colleagues’ shared values and trust from working together over time, which fuels the everyday innovation clients depend on. The ultimate client compliment—“You’re an extension of our team”—comes in large part from continuity. It’s the glue that sustains an agency. 

Look around your agency, and you’ll see people are busier than ever answering intensifying client needs and pitches. More is riding on their time. Starting over with new leaders dilutes it for a period that’s getting harder to afford, whereas established team members have the advantage of knowing how everyone works. More than any formal process, relationships generate efficiency. 

Promote multidisciplinary perspectives

When leaders can view client opportunities and problems through a multidisciplinary lens, they see more, know more and move faster. They’re intimate with the nuances of client businesses and agency culture. It’s easier and stronger to change up a discipline with someone who’s a fixture with clients and a pillar of the culture. Especially in a full-service environment, that person has the relationships and trust to inspire other departments to collaborate.

By contrast, new people who know a lot more about a discipline than existing teams can disrupt the flow. You get hiccups in production, tension over process and style and staff defections. 

Of course, we’re going to tap the talent marketplace when we need high-level expertise we don’t have (or suddenly missing because someone moved on). But don’t mistake high-profile hires as a substitute for foundation.

Related: Why creative burnout is caused by job resentment, not too much work

When billionaire Steve Cohen bought the New York Mets after the 2020 season, he shelled out for many of baseball’s biggest stars to assemble a championship team. Two disappointing seasons later, he’s parted with most of them and reset his sights on developing homegrown talent. 

Think agency, not just individual

We tend to think of career development as being one-sided, simply giving employees the upward track to fulfill their ambitions. We need to consider agency development more carefully in the equation to balance subject matter expertise with leadership experience. That means looking for where an individual’s strengths can have a greater impact—for them, the agency and the clients. By identifying the sweet spots where personal and collective needs intersect, we can bring new resonance to subject matter capabilities and fresh energy to the agency. 

Put people in unexpected roles

You’ll rejuvenate careers in the process. A promotion with broader responsibility in the same assignment is still more of the same. It’s one of the things that prompts top performers to jump to new agencies—they want something new to get excited about. Giving them that next step internally helps everyone. It also creates a culture of cross-promotion—so people at all levels can keep finding what’s new without having to find a new agency—and spreads a feeling of opportunity and recognition. It cements key people to the agency and clients and increases productivity – 9.7% on average, according to Gallup. 

Unexpected leaders have a way of broadening and sharpening their disciplines to give clients more powerful performance. If you put a veteran account leader in charge of media, for example, you're apt to find their breadth and depth of experience will spark new ways to deliver market performance. Similarly, if you let a digital media leader develop your new technology venture, their firsthand experience in the needs and obstacles of client delivery will likely boost sales and retention.  

Prioritizing homegrown talent now will keep agencies productive, buttress client organizations and sustain client relationships. Keeping key people is paramount, but it’s not enough to get them to stay. We need to keep them engaged and ultimately inspired. To do it we must keep them growing, especially when there aren’t endless rungs to climb on the management ladder within a specialty. 

Clients face the same challenge with leaner marketing organizations. There are fewer jobs to move into, so the refresh must come from mixing up challenges and opportunities. When you promote across from within to fill new roles for the agency or department, you neutralize the two-headed monster of burnout and churn.