“If you treat an individual... as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be”
One of the great challenges senior lawyers face is being a leader while also ‘on the tools’. Time is at a premium. This can mean that developing your team, or even having a team meeting, can get de-prioritized, and pushed out until you can get your head above the affray – an occasion which just never seems to eventuate!
When it comes to promotion the emphasis tends to be on your technical and business development ability not necessarily on your leadership skills, and yet it’s the leadership skills that can really get your team humming.
So what can you do to improve your leadership skills when you are time poor and when much of the leadership theory you either read or have foisted upon you by management consultants and coaches (ahem…like myself) just doesn’t seem to apply? Or it applies but implementation gets stymied by the numerous demands on your time.
The key is to simplify
If you were to take to heart all the requirements LinkedIn articles demanded of leaders, you would be depressed or at the very least completely overwhelmed. You have to be no less than authentic, motivating, empathetic, values based, emotionally intelligent, focused on the why, culturally aware, gender aware, visionary, strategic, approachable, energetic, charismatic… the list goes on.
These attributes all have their place, but if you want to give your leadership a quick boost, one simple thing you can do is to make sure your interactions with your team count.
It’s easy to slip into time saving habits that have a demotivating impact on staff. Emails with to-do lists in the subject line might be the most expeditious use of your time but are not particularly motivating. Another example is only engaging when you need something from a team member, or worse, only engaging when there has been a stuff up. When it’s all good, the team gets ignored; when it’s bad, there’s loads of attention.
When you are flat-out, it’s easy for the personal touch to go by the wayside. It’s another way of short-termism creeping in and not looking at the bigger picture.
Maximize the benefits of positive interactions
Organizational Anthropologist, Dr Judith Glaser, has done some really interesting work on the importance of positive conversations. In the Harvard Business Review she argues “that when we face criticism, rejection or fear, when we feel marginalized or minimized, our bodies produce higher levels of cortisol, a hormone that shuts down the thinking center of our brains and activates conflict aversion and protection behaviors. We become more reactive and sensitive. We often perceive even greater judgment and negativity than actually exists. And these effects can last for 26hrs or more, imprinting the interaction on our memories and magnifying the impact it has on our future behavior.”
Conversely a positive interaction or conversation spurs the production of oxytocin, a feel good hormone activating networks in our prefrontal cortex – elevating our ability to communicate, collaborate and trust others. The catch: oxytocin metabolizes more quickly than cortisol, so the impact of a positive interaction tends to wear off more quickly than a negative one.
Neuroscience is backing up what common sense tells us.
Be more mindful of your impact
The nature of legal work and the tendency towards perfectionism can make for many adversarial and demanding interactions with your team which can be overly negative – resulting in a tendency to cross examine rather than inquire, problem solve rather than listen, tell rather than ask.
Try doing a quick audit on your team member interactions at the end of the day to see how many positive and negative leadership interactions you’ve had. You’re aiming for more positive than negative, obviously; but this doesn’t mean you don’t have difficult conversations and provide feedback, it does mean becoming more mindful of your interactions and increasing and enhancing the positive.
Positive interactions with your team include taking time out to listen, showing concern, that you value their opinions and perspective, appreciating, acknowledging and asking questions that stimulate discussion. It can be simple as asking a team member you cross paths with in the elevator, what their biggest challenge is at the moment, and listening, or asking how you might be able to support them.
Each day identify one to three interactions where you can shift the tone from either negative or passive, and find a way to make it a more positive experience for you and your team. It doesn’t take much more time, but a little effort, attention and focus to get that oxytocin flowing. The end result will be a higher performing team, and more impactful leadership.