My Super Senior Partner

Obviously I have never held a full-time job as lawyer in a major firm....nor have I held any job related to the legal field, for that matter. So by any objective standard I would not be a very credible source regarding which qualities that an effective manager in the legal domain should possess. What I do know, however, are the characteristics of a senior partner or supervisor that would be most inspiring to me as a new lawyer. I believe that the best leaders are those that adopt an affiliative style of leadership. That is, leaders who seek to develop harmonious relationships with employees, while being sensitive to the unique identities of those employees. This requires a great deal of flexibility on the part of leaders, as they naturally may lead many different types of people, but it also has a high potential to inspire employees by helping them to feel valued. Furthermore, I believe that another key strategy that leaders can employ is to encourage subordinates to celebrate their short-term victories on the road towards achieving long-term goals. Not only are these the most inspiring leadership characteristics for me personally, but I also believe that they are essential for all effective leaders.

I consider myself a highly motivated individual. One may go so far as to say that I am a classic overachiever. However, this was not always so. In my freshman year of high school I had a teacher who regularly set aside time to meet with me to discuss my personal development outside the classroom. This particular teacher was not accustomed to this kind of one-on-one mentoring approach. However, she recognized that this was something that was important to me personally, and was willing to be flexible and adjust her leadership style accordingly. When I performed well on various tasks, the teacher helped me to stay motivated by encouraging me to celebrate those short-term wins, while simultaneously helping me to maintain a focus on my long-term interests, values, and goals, such as attending a prestigious university. As a result of my encounter with this teacher, my academic performance skyrocketed, and I began to view academics as a way to experience personal fulfillment. However elementary this may sound, I believe that my ideal supervisor within the legal profession should utilize the same core leadership strategies as my high school teacher.

Upon graduating from law school, I hope to have the privilege to work for a supervising senior partner in a law firm who will take the time to get to know me, my idiosyncrasies, and my values. Ideally, this partner would pursue a long-term mentoring relationship with me in which they would impart time-honored wisdom, while encouraging me to be true to my own values even in the workplace. That is to say, my ideal manager would practice the affiliative style of leadership. I respect a leader or manager that has experienced personal success, but I would hope that they would not attempt to use their own personal heroics as a primary strategy with which to inspire others. Such a strategy is commonly referred to as pacesetting, and would not be particularly motivating to me. The issue of creating short-term wins for followers to celebrate is a key strategy for helping employees maintain motivation. In the legal world, I would hope that my employer would encourage and praise me for such short-term successes as passing the bar exam or winning my first case. John Kotter has described the notion of short term wins as a key practice of successful leaders in terms of maintaining motivation over the long-run.

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/pdcoutts/leadership/Kotter.htm

Thus, while leaders can choose to pursue any number of different strategies to motivate their followers, I consider the affiliative style of leadership, along with the creation of short-term wins for employees, to be among the most important practices that leaders can cultivate, whether they are senior partners in a law firm or leaders in virtually any other field. Leaders can chose to adopt narrow and rigid leadership strategies, but in doing so they risk the alienation of a large number of their followers. However, maintaining a flexible and relationship-centered approach has the greatest potential to allow leaders to reach the greatest number of followers.