What’s missing from most law firms? Quite a bit, actually.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I started consulting to organizations on leadership development when I was still an officer in the United States Navy. I would travel around to various Navy commands near the Norfolk area, both civilian and military, and help improve their performance by developing innovative leadership models. On the corporate side beginning in the mid 90’s, I conducted leadership studies through both my mangement consulting and also my executive search practices. In working directly with companies to help grow their teams, whether it was conducting a retained search for a vice president or delivering a keynote at a corporate convention or a retreat with the board, I gave my clients a model of building blocks that, despite their simplicity, are critical for growth.
Values. Vision. Mission.
It’s rare to find law firms that understand that legal skills and leadership skills are two separate core competencies. They forget that these are human beings who need to be led, and that you can push people to a point before they start asking themselves, ‘Why on earth am I here?’
As a legal recruiter, I talk with partners every day about their options. Every once in a while, surprisingly high at about one in five, I come across a partner who admits a lack of satisfaction with his firm’s practice. It has nothing to do with the comp plan or the bonus program or the equity share. It has everything to do with something related to leadership.
How do you solve for this problem? It’s simple and sounds easy, but it’s not. Leadership is something that can be learned, fortunately, so you have to take time to study it and talk about it and get together as a group and learn it and apply it together. The concepts aren’t hard to get your arms around, you just have to do it. And you can’t say you don’t have time. It’s kind of like saying that you don’t have time to get to the dentist to fill the cavity. It’s painful and sometimes expensive but you sure are glad at the end of the visit. Contrast it with the consequences of not going and all of a sudden you seem like you can find the time.
Law firms are starting to face that consequence right now. They scratch their heads and wonder why they just lost a three-partner group to a competitor and if they knew the answer they would have tried to solve the problem earlier. But they don’t know the answer because their focus isn’t on leadership development.