Leadership in Law Firms

Leadership is an innate trait (there are several books that even classify its styles) that not all people naturally have in their personalities, but, in its the absence, it may be learned and trained. In this regard, there are dozens of books and theories about styles and forms of leadership to which, in this present discussion, I am not going to stick. I particularly regard Ichak Adizes as one of the writers that best (pragmatically) define this subject.

One of the major roles of a leader is to establish (and clearly communicate at all levels) the values and targets of the organization in a clear way so that each person can be completely engaged when performing his/her job, taking decisions or having any other professional attitude involving the institution and himself/herself.

In this present discussion, I want to approach the fact that I consider to be the major one across the entire leadership, that is the continuity. Leaders are people who should last!

For this continuity to happen, the leader must have some characteristics (regardless of the style, as already mentioned above):

– He/she must be admired (look, I said admired, not loved). The led must find some characteristics in the leader that he/she can look up to, follow or even want to be in the future.

– He/she must be coherent. No matter the style, the team must feel professional confidence in the attitudes of its leader (look, I said coherent, not predictable).

– He/she must be the example. That dictum that says: “Do what I say, do not do what I do” is the worst attitude ever (mainly when the team is formed by people from Generation Y).

– He/she must be ethical (comments here are not necessary).

In organizations that are vertically loosely structured, as in the case of law offices in general, the exercise of “delegation” occurs much more due to the technical know-how and past experience of the most experienced ones and due to the professional respect (technical) of the younger ones towards the first ones and this fact may generate conflicts between “delegation” and leadership, which are very different things.

Another point to be considered has to do with the intrinsic characteristic related to the lawyer’s profession, in which all the professionals are trained for the “clash”, with a strong focus on reasoning skills (verbal or in writing) and in the capacity to search and find details on which they can base their arguments or weaken the arguments of their opponents. This fact makes the leadership exercise much more difficult and requires the leader to show all his skills mentioned above in order for his/her led to respect him/her.

All actions taken by the leaders have consequences in the short, medium and long term, in the company and in the team, and how this cycle is completed will define the continuity of the leadership!

External and experienced support, exempt from interactions and internal relationships can help a lot in the guidance and training of leaders and in a more effective and professional management of the teams.

José Paulo Graciotti, is consultant and founding Partner of GRACIOTTI ASSESSORIA EMPRESARIAL, engeneer by Escola Politécnica Universidade de São Paulo, with Financial MBA at FGV and specialized in Knowledge Mnagement by FGV. ILTA Member since 1998 (International Legal Technology Association) and ALA (Association of Legal Administrators), with more than 27 years managing Law Firms in Brazil – www.graciotti.com.br