Unhappy and unproductive lawyers have often missed the connection between the pure practice of law and creating a long term career. As individual lawyers, missing this connection means years of malcontent. For law practices, the missed connection produces mediocre businesses that have difficulty surviving. Leadership is a set of skills that can be taught and learned. Beginning lawyers can be trained to be leaders of their support staff team mates.
Associates can lead a larger team of support staff, colleagues and clients.
Partners need skills to lead even larger teams, including firm management responsibilities and community service. This style shows up in abusive authority, poor delegation, dictatorship in decision making, poor listening skills and egocentric behavior. The military model is ineffective with lawyers and particularly ineffective with younger lawyers. Lawyers want recognition and praise, managerial time, opportunities to learn new things, fun at work and rewards for a job well done. Participatory, facilitatory, democracy, and flat organizational characteristics are more effective leadership styles for lawyers.