Originally published in The Legal Intelligencer
Smart Strategy
It is a hot, hot summer and tensions are high. A bevy of seemingly never-ending factors—from the pandemic to social anxiety to political tensions—have people’s amygdala—the “fight or flight” response center—working overtime. This constant state of high alert not only is personally draining, but also is a palpable threat to individual health, relationships, organizational productivity and long-term success. Pile on talent shortages and sizable workloads, and the situation is fast reaching a boiling point.
Law firm leaders are experiencing this heightened state of anxiety at multiple levels. Personally, many leaders feel ill-equipped to manage the stressors of guiding a multi-million or -billion-dollar organization on top of personal challenges. Those attempting to grow a practice simultaneously are even more strapped. Relationally, leaders are being pulled—often unwillingly—into highly emotional and sometimes contentious debates among partners and senior professionals. Political debate and disagreements over flexible work policies, in particular, are evoking a special kind of tension. Organizationally, leaders are aiming to move toward more inclusive workplaces at a time when the very premise of effective culture—safety—is at a remarkable low. The struggle is real.
This confluence of factors is leaving many leaders feeling equally frustrated, burnt out, exasperated, agitated and hopeless. At the outset of the pandemic, in early 2020, fully 37% of the top leader roles in AmLaw 200 firms were occupied by individuals who had been in the role for less than three years according to research by The Tilt Institute for Law.com Pro. Similarly, as of 2019, just two in three law firms offered any leadership training to partners with even fewer—just 32%—delivering a dedicated program on leadership. It is no wonder the constancy and strain of leading during this time of incessant, imposed change is so daunting. Few leaders in law firms have the experience or preparation to tackle today’s challenges (challenges, which, notably, are taxing for even the most effective, experienced leaders).
Fortunately, there are concrete steps law firm leaders can take to navigate these tumultuous waters and, in the process, positively impact themselves, their colleagues and their organizations. The first step, like many things in life, is awareness. Awareness, in the context of leading through high-stress situations, takes three forms.
The first, taken from the pages of Daniel Goleman’s model of Emotional Intelligence or “Leadership 101”, is self-awareness. Self-awareness empowers leaders to better understand their own perspective, emotions, strengths and vulnerabilities. It is core to any leader’s development and his or her ability to effectively respond to others.
The second is other awareness. Known more commonly as empathy, other awareness describes one’s ability to identify and relate to the emotional state and experience of another person. It is different from sympathy in that it involves feeling with—not for—someone else. (This Brene Brown clip does an entertaining job of explaining the difference.)
Finally, the third type of awareness is situational. Specifically, what is the root cause of the problem surfacing. Unfortunately for many leaders, many of today’s challenges—burnout, frustration, conflict—manifest similarly. Disengagement, lower productivity, silence and little proactivity can all signal any of the three. The upside is the process by which to uncover the root cause is largely the same. (For more complex or persistent problems, try Thomas Weddell-Weddellsborg’s tips for reframing.)
Building Self-Awareness
For those within law firms, many of whom are rarely afforded the access common in other professions to tools and resources for boosting self-awareness (e.g., TypeCoach, Hogan, DiSC, MBTI, etc.), the quest to find clarity about one’s strengths and inherent biases is often self-directed (or, in some instances, entirely absent). Some leaders seek out insights on their own.
The vast majority, however, are often thrown into leadership roles with little preparation. Models of leaders gleaned as they advanced through their careers shape their perspective and how they themselves lead (whether by adopting or rejecting). An overemphasis is often placed on what the leader does poorly rather than what they do well.
For those lucky enough to have higher levels of self-awareness, whether innately or through personal efforts such as therapy, their effectiveness as leaders will benefit. For the rest, dedicating even a small amount of time can go a long way. A few steps to help build self-awareness:
Take an online, low-investment assessment such as Strengths Profile or Strengths Finder. Read the resultant report and follow the recommendations to deepen self-understanding, find areas to focus for increased energy and learn what tasks and activities to delegate or seek support.
Explore personal core values. Personal core values help to provide a compass for how an individual approaches others and situations. They can streamline decision making and aid leaders in determining how a proposed opportunity aligns with or detracts from what they, personally, would like to accomplish. (Organizational core values behave similarly for the firm at large and can be equally valuable when evaluating systemic changes. More on that in the next article.) Some examples of personal core values are here, here and here. Use these to create a starting list by selecting those most resonant, grouping them into themes and prioritizing and revising until just three to five remain.
Ask others for candid feedback. Whether in the form of a formal 360-degree feedback exercise or an informal discussion, asking others for their viewpoint on where a leader shines can shed light on one’s abilities and opportunities to learn and evolve.
Once leaders have increased their level of self-awareness, they are better equipped to effectively identify, manage and resolve the individual and organizational issues rampant in firms including burn out, overwhelm, conflict and more. At the crux of today’s challenges is people—inside and outside of the firm. Talent engagement, culture in a remote world, political dichotomies, diversity—all of these emanate from individual experience and emotional connection. A leader’s self-awareness empowers her to understand and engage with others at a much deeper level, leading to greater impact and more lasting changes relationally and organizationally.
Boosting Empathy
The second frontier in resolving the tide of negativity plaguing the legal sector (and beyond) is empathy and, relatedly, the ability to show compassion. While it may sound obvious, showing compassion is not always the first instinct for many leaders. Instead, law firm leaders (and others) often conflate the concepts of empathy and problem-solving, believing their response to a person’s situation or concern must entail helping them to resolve the issue. That’s why the individual came to them, right? Perhaps. Yet, displaying compassion and devising a solution are two distinct acts. Plus, research shows the first can be far more powerful at assuaging an employee’s immediate response than the latter.
Take an example of an associate coming to a partner with a childcare challenge. His fulltime caregiver has taken ill with COVID in the midst of a deal closing and his wife is on the road taking a deposition. How the partner responds to this information can have either an encouraging or detrimental impact. Clearly, the “I don’t care what’s going on, get your butt into work,” is easily flagged as less-than-optimal (though common enough). Yet what about the more subtle “well, let me see if I can get Maya to step in for you on this deal?”
While that may feel like a relief-valve, in the long-run this kind of response can leave the Associate feeling at a disadvantage. Plus, neither response offers an empathetic response—an understanding of the difficulty of the situation or a recognition of the emotional toll. It is this missed opportunity that, over time, can exacerbate the feelings of burnout, disconnection and anxiety that erode productivity, employee engagement and culture.
While there is no formula for how to show empathy, a few tips can help leaders jumpstart the effort for themselves and those around them:
Start with compassion. As the example above illustrates, leaders often leapfrog empathy in favor of problem-solving. It is, after all, what most leaders and businesspeople get paid to do. Yet the key to alleviating pent up emotions and helping others to reestablish a sense of comfort in their environment (the first step to opening up candid conversations and creating engagement) is to recognize the way people feel. Despite a sometimes gut reaction to suppress emotion in the workplace, the simple act of acknowledging an emotional response detracts from its power and makes the bearer feel heard and seen.
Listen. Again, it sounds simple yet the compulsion to solve problems can be so overwhelming at times—and the time constraints real—it is easy to overlook the value of saying nothing. Leaders can gain tremendous insight into the challenges within their organization by opening their ears and closing their mouths. This advice works equally well for those who are being flooded with emotions or seeking to understand what lies behind an employee’s or colleague’s anxiety, frustration or silence.
Tailor responses to the individual. Through self-awareness, leaders learn to recognize their own strengths and emotions. Other awareness helps leaders to gain insight into what those around them value and hold dear. Leaders can use this information to tailor the way they react to and engage with others, homing in on what others most value to improve receptivity and commitment to resolving situations.
Empathy is a potent tool in any leaders’ toolkit. In some ways it is the secret weapon which empowers leaders to accomplish the impossible. By creating interpersonal connections and fostering an environment where emotion is accepted and even embraced as what makes people human, leaders can make the shift toward a more inclusive organization where conflict, distrust and anxiety can be managed effectively and positively.
Getting to the Root of the Problem
As mentioned earlier in the article, the third step to helping leaders tackle the negative impacts of current dynamics is situational awareness—delving deeper into understanding the core issue(s) and then addressing those issues at an individual and organizational level. A second article, due for publication in September, will outline how to approach situational awareness, what common challenges leaders are facing (including burn out/overwhelm, internal conflict and disengagement), and what they can do to address these challenges at a cultural and organizational level within their firms.