Top-talents med förväntningar - En kvalitativ intervjustudie om att leda i spänningsfältet mellan performance management och top-talents på ett managementkonsultbolag

Sammanfattning: This paper aims to outline leaders' experiences of managing consultants from their company's performance management system. The study was conducted by qualitative interviews with senior managers and HR professionals within a management consulting firm. The aim was to describe the company's performance management system, their consultants and the challenges of leading in this context. The theoretical framework consists of previous research in leadership, performance management and management consulting. Within these research areas the authors identify a knowledge gap in leaders' perspectives on managing top-talents with performance management systems in the management consulting industry. The results show that leaders describe their consultants as top talents and that the challenges are derived from consultants' expectations of (1) rapid career, (2) good results and assessments and (3) clear and consistent feedback. With support from empirical data and previous research this paper presents suggestions on how these challenges can be managed. These suggestions concern the communication between leaders but also the communication between leaders and consultants.