Are you a broker or a consultant? (Part 1)

Are your clients interested in hiring a broker or a benefits consultant? What is the structure of your clients’ benefits program and what are their issues? What happens to you, your boss, or your clients’ employees if you did nothing about those issues? In many cases, the adoption of one job title over the other is driven by the type and execution of one’s skills versus the firm’s name. For example, let’s consider Acme Consulting. Apparently no brokers are employed there based on the name on the building. The proof will lie in how they accomplish the scope of their assignment. As another example, a client once introduced me to an associate as “our broker”. Funny, I thought I was a consultant and subsequently did not feel so good about my role with this client.

What’s the difference? Organizational behavior experts provide valuable insight on this issue when they discuss leadership in organizations. In their 2010 book Organizational Behavior Managing People and Organizations, Ricky W. Griffin of Texas A&M University and Gregory Moorhead of Arizona State University outline two styles of leadership: transactional and transformational. According to Griffin/Moorhead: