As agencies strive to differentiate themselves and drive growth, a powerful yet often overlooked advantage lies in transforming outdated account management into a strong, growth-minded account leadership discipline. When the account group is overlooked and underdeveloped—which is the case (nowadays) more often than not—prioritizing it becomes a powerful competitive edge. Agencies who are intentional about strengthening and developing their account team from passive managers to growth-minded leaders will reap the very real rewards of enhanced client relationships and organic growth.
Developing Proactive, T-Shaped Account Leaders
Ditch the Blurred Lines of Service & Management: It’s Costing You More Than You Think.
In too many agencies, the traditional role of account management is poorly defined. Are account managers responsible for client relationships? Project oversight? Contribution to Strategy and Business growth? The answer should be all of the above—but in too many cases, account management has become a reactive function focused more on facilitation than contributions directly attributable to growth. This is unacceptable and unsustainable.
Without clarity of purpose and elevated expectations, many agencies experience:
- Confusion between account and project management—account managers and project managers perform overlapping tasks, leading to costly inefficiencies. Proprietary research from 2023 which appeared in the recently published book, The Agency Within Us, demonstrated that 65% of all respondents (including the account discipline) agree that Account Management is now confused with Project Management.
- Diminished impact—when account teams function like project managers, they become reactive middlemen rather than strategic growth drivers. That same research from 2023 also indicated that just 44% of all respondents agree that Account teams take an active role in growing the clients’ business, leaving a lot of agencies with a big hole to fill. (3-10% annually is a solid benchmark…the question is: who is doing that work?)
- Limited business influence—because underdeveloped account teams lack business acumen, clients rely more on strategists, creatives, and media specialists. The account managers sit idly by, unable to contribute to the important conversations. Clients view them as order takers who can’t connect the work to business impact and internal team members can view them as obstacles to doing great work. This can erode trust, damage relationships and negatively impact retention of clients and internal teams.
Do the math in each of these areas. The impacts and costs are far from neutral. This can quickly add up to hundreds of thousands and millions in direct costs and lost revenue through role redundancy, retention issues (ie: save mode) and weak organic growth. And that doesn’t account for the frustration other team members feel when they must ‘do their work for them.’
The Solution: Build The Discipline of Account Leadership.
Build a team of proactive, growth-minded Account Leaders who are more than facilitators and are equipped to take an active role in driving their client’s business forward and driving organic growth. This is where the T-shaped Account Leader comes in.
A T-shaped professional balances deep expertise in a core area with broad knowledge across multiple disciplines. The vertical part of the “T” represents deep expertise in a key area that drives business value. For Account Leaders, this should be business leadership—understanding revenue models, financials, products, markets, industry trends, and how marketing directly impacts growth.
The horizontal part of the “T” represents broad cross-functional knowledge. In this case: understanding creative, media, digital, and analytics well enough to connect the dots between disciplines and strategies. This extends further into being able to confidently speak to all aspects of the agency’s work…and the ability to stand on one’s own two feet when engaging with client leadership.
And just like that, the role has shifted from passive cost center to proactive leadership with perspective and a POV informed by knowledge. Now you have a discipline that’s focused on:
- Client business growth—understanding revenue drivers and helping clients to better identify and solve business problems
- Agency organic growth—effectively able to expand the existing SOW and proactively whet the client’s appetite for new ideas and initiatives, driving incremental revenue
- Strategic leadership—connecting marketing efforts to business outcomes instead of just managing workflows
- Long-term forward thinking—with one eye on the current year, they also have one eye on ‘what’s next,’ accountable for guiding the process of developing a shared vision and demonstrable commitment to long term growth and prosperity for the client and the agency
Why the Proactive, T-Shaped Leadership Model Drives Competitive Advantage for Agencies
Because this discipline is deeply malnourished and underdeveloped, the agencies that do invest in developing a high performing Account Leadership discipline can achieve a massive competitive advantage.
- Depth builds credibility and trust. Clients trust leaders who understand how marketing connects to revenue. Agency partners trust leaders who are confident and can help sell better work through the lens of business and brand leadership.
- Breadth enables adaptability. Understanding multiple disciplines makes account leaders better collaborators, problem solvers, translators and integrators.
- Proactivity is the key to leadership. T-shaped leaders don’t wait for client requests—they can better understand the situation, anticipate needs and guide the agency in bringing forward strategic solutions.
This model shifts account managers from reactive facilitators, managing workflow, to trusted business advisors—with a seat at the table rather than a background role.
Developing Muscle Memory
Strategic Framing—Turning Tactical Requests into Business Conversations. When teams are trained how to reframe a tactical request and connect it to a bigger business objective…it sends clear signals to the client:
- There’s a shift in focus from tactical execution to business strategy and impact
- Positions their account person/team as proactive thinkers
- Builds credibility with an eye on long-term success, not just execution.
Always Learning and Growth Mindset
Use GPTs for Industry-Specific Insights. To better understand client industry trends, set up custom GPTs to deliver curated information and insights on their competitive landscape, market trends, and revenue drivers. Staying informed allows one to be proactive and bring strategic ideas to clients before they ask.
Bottom line: Revenue growth is the number one driver of value for Account Leaders, and as proactive, T-Shaped Leaders, they become indispensable.
Next in the Series:
Post #2 of 4
Skill Building for T-Shaped Account Leadership: How Depth & Breadth Drive Value for Clients & Agencies
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Lori Bartle is a seasoned marketing and advertising professional whose career spans nearly every corner of the industry. With a rare blend of client-side, agency-side, and media experience, her comprehensive and uniquely insightful perspective sets her apart as a transformative account and agency leader.
