legal sanity

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Since writing this post about the making of law firm evangelists, I’ve thought a lot about what it takes to create a corps of lawyers and non-lawyer staff stirred to voluntarily shout a firm’s praises from the rafters. I know that this corps might form by way of an organic, grassroots rally around a beloved firm. But, it’s more likely that employee evangelists are cultivated over time by an inspired and inspiring law firm leader. This conclusion has (re)kindled my interest in the subject of lawyer leadership. So, I was happy to come across a new article by Hildebrandt consultants Dr. Larry Richard and Susan Raridon Lambreth called What Does It Take to Develop Effective Law Firm Leaders? In it, the authors stress that the need for law firm leadership is “greater than ever” and that leaders are more ‘made’ than ‘born.’” After clarifying the differences between management (“depends on analytical, rational, data-based, cognitive strategies to be effective”) and leadership (“much more people-focused, inspirational, emotional, non-linear and visceral”), the article sets out the characteristics of effective leaders - Honest, Competent, Forward-looking, and Inspiring – along with related competencies and behaviors. The first of these characteristics – Honesty – caught my attention because of another article I’d recently read on Corporate Values and Employee Cynicism. That article consists of an interview with professors Sandra Cha and Amy Edmondson, who’ve studied what happens, and what can be done, when employees view a charismatic business leader (one who motivates “people by creating a vision that revolves around some set of meaningful higher ideals or values”) as hypocritical; that is, as acting contrary to corporate values employees hold dear. Their insights confirm that identification with company values may spark employee evangelism; but it’s up to law firm leaders to fan the spark into a flame. If you’re interested, you can read the larger scholarly work this interview draws from: When values backfire: Leadership, attribute and disenchantment in a values-driven organization (pdf). The Be Excellent blog also has some interesting things to say about Defining Leadership and the Qualities of a Leader.