It's a fine balancing act to maintain senior level involvement in accounts—which clients expect at varying degrees—without overshadowing and disempowering account team leaders. I know I haven't always been as graceful or effective in this regard as I would have liked. But over the years, I have found the following approaches to be effective in both positioning and supporting account leaders as the "hero" to their clients while maintaining senior level visibility with clients:

1. Communicate with your account team leaders exactly how you would like to be involved with their clients. This includes participating in program development, being kept in the loop on major client and account developments, attending key client meetings, etc. I've found it helps to clearly communicate your expectations upfront to account team leaders about how you want to be involved with clients, explaining, if necessary, that it's not because you don't trust their judgment, but that it's simply good business practice for senior agency executives to remain in close contact with clients.

I would elaborate by saying that you and the account leader share the same goal, i.e., to keep and grow client business by making sure that the full resources of the agency are being deployed to deliver success for clients and that you, personally, are committed to helping them succeed for the agency and for their clients.

2. Offer yourself as a resource to the account team to help them deliver better work than they could do without your involvement. Over the years, I've done a lot of behind-the-scenes work in brainstorming, writing and editing plans and other documents that are sent out under the signature of account team leaders and their teammates. When clients have responded with praise, this has helped to build their confidence in the agency, their account team and in individual team members. This makes everyone look good, especially you for having the good sense to hire talented people and to trust them to do great work for clients.

Often your account service folks—especially smart managers—will let their clients know that senior management is involved in their account through your behind-the-scenes support and championing of the team and, by extension, the client. This type of servant-leadership approach characterizes how our management team here strives to support employees.

3. Assist account team leaders and members in preparing for important client meetings. This can be done in the same way we prep clients with media training to help them successfully handle media interviews and communicate key messages, while gracefully handling difficult questions. As we know, the best way for account executives to learn and grow into strong account managers is by successfully handling challenging clients and accounts. We can help them to succeed by coaching them on how to counsel clients, including engaging in "role playing" so they can learn to think on their feet in developing cogent responses to difficult questions that might be asked of them.

4. Handle and communicate key account team changes to the client. Senior agency management can use these opportunities to communicate key account staffing changes to the client while reassuring them the agency will do whatever it takes to ensure that servicing of their account does not suffer. Once a key replacement is in place, it is a great opportunity for senior management to continue communicating with the client to ensure that the transition has gone smoothly and that the client feels well looked after, especially during this critical period.

5. Create opportunities to engage with clients. This includes leading or participating in semi-annual or annual client-agency evaluations, getting involved in planning meetings, attending major client presentations, hosting a celebration of an account team victory to which you invite their clients, sending books or articles that a client may be interested in reading for personal or professional edification, inviting clients to industry or other professional development events and celebratory events spotlighting the agency or agency leader. Celebratory events of this nature are, in fact, very reinforcing of a client's decision to hire and work with their chosen agency.

6. Take every opportunity to help people succeed and brag about them to clients and colleagues. There's nothing more reassuring for clients than to know their account people are "stars" and highly regarded by agency management. Again, this is a win-win-win situation—good for the employee, their clients and the agency. Employees who are treated as valuable talent by agency management whose expectation is that they will do great work usually rise to the occasion.

Overall, the most valuable role that senior leaders can play in fostering strong client-agency relationships is to make sure accounts are serviced by teams with the right talent and experience for the assignment—and that these teams have the proper resources and support to deliver great work. Getting these fundamentals right is usually the most effective way to position the agency and senior management as being committed to serving the best interest of their clients.