Remember the childhood game of “follow the leader”? Are we still doing that today?
What is leadership? There are as many definitions of the term as there are people who think they are leaders. Some truly are leaders and some are just kidding themselves (as well as others). Concepts of leadership have changed over the decades, and that’s a good thing. We have come a long way from the previously fashionable style of “command and control.” Where once a CEO such as Jack Welch at General Electric was vaunted for his leadership, that was the same Welch who reduced the bottom 20% of his staff every year. “Rank and yank” it was called. Now there are revisionist opinions as to Welch’s success.
Leadership is essential to being a good lawyer regardless of whether you are a sole practitioner, in a small firm, a middling size firm, or one of those behemoth firms that are gobbling up other firms (not without some acid reflux).
What does leadership have to do with lawyering? A lot. Regardless of your position in a firm, be it junior puppy, senior puppy, partner of whatever nature, people both in the firm and out regard you as representing that firm, be it with clients, opposing counsel, the court, and (not the least), the people you work with on a daily basis — your teammates, your colleagues.
Leadership can run the gamut from representing the client in court, heading a negotiation team, suggesting how to strategize litigation, and supervising paralegals and other support staff. Even chairing a bar association committee, giving pro bono advice to a nonprofit, anything, anywhere can be viewed as leadership. Others may not regard you as a leader, but you are. (Even though “soft skills” are still underrated as leadership qualities, and of course they are not billing machines.)
While this ATL post was more than a year ago, the same soft skills still apply today, perhaps even more so. Two of them are leadership and a sense of humor (no surprise there if you think about it. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Translation: don’t be a pompous blowhard, in fact, don’t be a blowhard at all. Even popes have senses of humor. Take the work seriously, but taking yourself too seriously, not having a sense of humor about the million and one things that can (and do) go wrong every day in the practice requires that we be able to laugh about our foibles and the foibles of others. And there’s plenty to laugh about. Just peruse any edition of ATL.
Example: this particular judge has a finely honed sense of the ridiculous (which is also necessary, especially in motion practice). Plaintiff’s counsel conditioned defendant counsel’s request for an extension of time on not filing a motion to dismiss. (Really? Any sense of humor there?) The court had the final word (it always does) by ordering counsel to have lunch together by year’s end and to then advise the court about their conversation. A benchslap of a different variety that holds great promise in litigation disputes. Definitely a leader in dispute resolution.
All judicial officers should consider this technique and warring counsel should as well. Breaking bread together may not lead to ultimate resolution, but it is hard to be pissed off when your mouth is full of an expensive meal for which opposing counsel pays. Yes, lest we forget, civility is also another component of leadership and another required MCLE course for California lawyers.
Leadership is also emotional intelligence, authority and vulnerability. I like the definition of leadership described in one of Louise Penny’s mysteries. The protagonist, Inspector Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, says that leadership has four elements: “I’m sorry. I was wrong, I need help. I don’t know.” Short and sweet, right?
How many of us apologize without fear of potential malpractice? Very few, I guess. How many of us say that we were wrong? Ditto, for the same reason. How many of us ask for help? How many of us have the courage to say “I don’t know?” If leadership is the ability to be humble, to acknowledge our failings, then how many of us would pass that test? We would all be advised to STFU. We don’t know everything, we can’t know everything. AI doesn’t know everything at least, not yet. And I don’t think that AI will ever provide leadership. Hopefully that will always be a human need.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at [email protected].