There is a plethora of leadership theory out there, some of it useful, much of it interesting to those who like leadership theory. Too many leadership articles quickly become a wish list of what we’d like from our leaders, not so much about what we as leaders can actually provide. Idealism over reality.
It’s a cliché, but it is also true: change is the new constant. We live in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world where everything can become overwhelming very quickly.
Most of us are searching for certainty at some level, and this offers the modern lawyer with the opportunity to provide certainty – in the form of trust.
It seems like there is ready advice to determine how to become a law partner, each firm will have their model of what you have to achieve to be considered, and most partners can tell you what they had to do to get there. What can be a little trickier is deciding if you really want to become a partner.
Too often in law firms a coach is only ever engaged for remedial purposes. The message sent to the lawyer is: you have a problem, you are not up to scratch, a poor performer; you can have a coach to ‘fix’ the problem.
Rather than seeing a coach as a positive thing, as a vote of confidence, a perk, an opportunity to maximise potential – which is much more in keeping with how executive coaching is viewed outside the law – the remedial coaching focus can create a stigma that makes lawyers more reluctant to engage a coach.
