Leading Your Law Firm:
Want to build a successful law firm? Get to know yourself. (Part 1)
by Nora Rivera Bergman
Regardless of whether you’re a sole practitioner or part of a large firm, you are a leader. Regardless of whether you’re working with one paralegal or a team of associates, you are a leader. You may not think of yourself as a leader, but each day when you walk into your office, you are influencing those around you. You are leading people every day – whether you realize it or not. So, what’s the key to leadership? Step one in the process: Self-awareness.
In Hamlet, Polonius prepares his son, Laertes for travel with the following advice – “This above all: To thine own self be true.” Unless we can first be true to ourselves, we cannot be true to others. Great leaders follow Polonius’ advice, although it is no easy task. To be true to yourself means to know yourself. To know yourself you must be self-aware. Self-awareness means not only understanding ourselves, but understanding our impact on others.
Why is self-awareness important? Because without self-awareness we can get caught up in behaviors that are inconsistent with our own values and beliefs. Without self-awareness, we may not have the courage to say “no” to the unimportant things in life so that we can focus on the truly important. Without self-awareness, leaders may fear appearing vulnerable. Without self-awareness, leaders can’t understand how their characteristics and behaviors are impacting other people. Self-awareness is the ability to understand ourselves and our characteristics, and utilize our characteristics in ways that serve us best.
In her book, Lawyer, Know Thyself, Susan Swaim Daicoff explains that some of the very characteristics that make lawyers successful in the courtroom can lead to problems in a more collaborative environment. [READ: Your office.]
[B]eing a predominantly rational, objective, competitive and argumentative sort of person may allow one to function well as an advocate during the workday, but be quite destructive to one’s interpersonal relationships. It may bleed over into being hostile, argumentative, and aggressive in all situations, which could hamper one’s ability to relate well with others, and thus impair one’s ability to garner social and collegial support.
In other words, when you’re meeting with your partners, associates and staff, remember - it’s not an adversarial contest. If you lack self-awareness, you may not realize that the characteristics that serve you well in the courtroom, may not serve you well at all in your work as a leader. Ironically, you may notice the characteristics Daicoff mentions in your colleagues, yet not be aware of them in yourself.
All too often, behavior we dislike in others is the very behavior we sometimes exhibit. And while we may refuse to recognize our own problem behaviors, they may be very obvious to those around us.
If we can stop, listen, and think about what others are seeing in us, we have a great opportunity. We can compare the self that we want to be with the self that we are presenting to the world. We can then begin to make real changes that are needed to close the gap between our stated values and our actual behavior.
From What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith
So, how do you go about getting to know yourself? One of the simplest ways is to utilize a behavioral assessment called DISC. More about that in next month’s eNews.
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