How to Hire a Managing Partner

Selecting or hiring a Managing Partner to lead a partnership is a distinctive challenge, blending business leadership with the dynamics of leading owner-peers. Here is how to approach it.

Business leadership and partner leadership

A Managing Partner must do two things: run the firm as a business — strategy, growth, performance, operations, and talent — and lead fellow partners who are also owners. Hiring or selecting one requires assessing for both. A partner who is a brilliant practitioner but a weak leader, or a strong business leader who cannot carry the partnership, will struggle. The combination of genuine business leadership and the ability to lead partners is what the role demands.

Legitimacy and leading peers

Leading fellow partners — owners with a stake and a voice — requires legitimacy, influence, and consensus-building rather than simple authority. A Managing Partner needs the standing and respect of the partnership and the temperament to lead peers who are not subordinates. Assessing for this legitimacy and the ability to carry the partnership, often the hardest and most distinctive part of the role, is central. A leader without the partners' genuine respect and buy-in cannot lead the firm effectively.

Often internal, sometimes external

Managing Partner roles are frequently filled from within the partnership, since legitimacy and knowledge of the firm matter so much. But firms sometimes seek an external perspective or a leader with capabilities the partnership lacks. Either way, the choice benefits from a clear, honest process assessing candidates against what the firm genuinely needs — its business challenges and its leadership needs — rather than defaulting to seniority or internal politics.

Fit with the partnership

Because the role rests so heavily on leading a specific partnership, fit with that partnership — its culture, its people, its ways — matters greatly, as much as generic capability. A leader who fits and can carry the partnership will achieve far more than a more accomplished one who cannot. Where an external search is warranted, a retained process can assess for both capability and genuine fit with the partnership.

Frequently asked questions

What should you look for when hiring a Managing Partner?

Genuine business-leadership capability to run the firm combined with the standing, legitimacy, and temperament to lead fellow partners — owners with a stake and a voice — through influence and consensus, plus real fit with the specific partnership.

Are Managing Partners hired internally or externally?

Frequently from within the partnership, since legitimacy and firm knowledge matter greatly, but sometimes externally for fresh perspective or capabilities the partnership lacks. Either way, the choice should be assessed against what the firm genuinely needs.

Related: What Does a Managing Partner Do? · How to Hire a CEO · Hiring Externally vs Promoting from Within