Agile leadership: navigating the double bind (334)

The jobs of being a leader within any law firm should come labeled with a clear warning: This job could seriously change you and how you behave within your firm!

Over the past two decades, I have had the privilege, through my research, interviews, and hands-on consulting to peek behind the veil surrounding the challenges of becoming a NEW Firm Chair (or whatever title best signifies your firm’s leader).

From candid discussions about the stress involved in looking like you know what you are doing and the huge time demands imposed by your partner’s requests to feeling disorientated by the scale and scope of the mandate, many professionals quietly struggle with the various pressures that accompany their term in office.  In fact, I’ve discovered that the great majority of leaders, in any position of responsibility, are at their most vulnerable early in their tenure.

As a new leader, you may be surprised to feel confused and indecisive at the precise time when you most want to appear clear-sighted and strong-minded.  You may feel overwhelmed and anxious just when you know you need to be seen as composed and dynamic.  In fact, what I’ve discerned is that there are a number of what I would label the “double binds of leadership” – the more or less ongoing dynamics of the job that incumbents wrestle with, to effectively handle being an effective leader.  Here are the top five:

1. Do I shake things up or do I preserve the status quo? (determining appetite for change)
2. Do I strengthen my bonds with people or do I maintain a distance? (developing working relationships)
3. Do I demonstrate that I know what to do or do I ask for help? (appearing knowledgeable)
4. Do I strongly influence the decision I want or do I facilitate a consensus? (making decisions)
5. Do I focus on achieving results or do I accept a degree of uncertainty? (setting action priorities)

Each of us, when first serving as a leader, has a natural predilection to favor one approach or the other; to gravitate to one extremity over the other.  Therefore, our preference, as to whether to “shake things up’’ or to “preserve the status quo” is often hard-wired into us, the result of past experiences gained before entering into our current leadership position.

What seasoned leaders come to learn, is that the only way to navigate these tensions successfully is to be agile in trying to manage both ends . . . simultaneously.

Let’s take a look at each of these double binds with an eye toward what anyone, as a new leader, can do to navigate them.  To give you a sense of what it truly feels like on the front lines, each of the following sections leads off with a quotation from a real-life law firm leader (kept anonymous for reasons that will be obvious).

1. Determining the appetite for change

(Double-Bind: Where do I shake things up and where do I preserve the status quo?)

Lawyers are creatures of habit and busy lawyers even more so.  The time and effort to “condition” them to new modes of operating should not be underestimated.  On a variety of change initiatives, my personal goal is to reduce the time from “that’s the dumbest idea I ever heard” to “we always do it that way” from 5 years to 3 years!

Your first area of tension as a leader is to obtain some sense of agreement from your partners on the direction your firm, office or practice/industry group should pursue.  That direction has a great deal to do with the performance you as the leader are charged to deliver.  It also has a great deal to do with your partner’s collective appetite for change.

“Our dilemma,” explained one managing partner, “is that we hate change and love it at the same time.  What my partners want is for things to remain exactly the same but get better.”

There are many questions that you could effectively utilize with each of your partners to get a grip on the direction they collectively want to go, but I have found that these two are pivotal:

1. What are the critical things we need to change as a firm and why?
2. What are the most important things about our law firm that we should be sure to preserve and why?

Keep In Mind:

As early as possible as a leader, you must get your partners’ input into what they see as the group’s preferable direction. Conduct one-on-one interview sessions with your partners – asking each one the same questions to get their insights, solicit their advice and see what themes emerge. Clarify what they want to see you “shake up” and what they want to see you “preserve.”  It is wise to have your partners see that you are genuinely engaged and willing to listen before you ever speak about where you think your group or the firm needs to go.

Your interview goals:

• Absorb information from your partners;
• Define or confirm the group’s/firm’s key challenges;
• Establish credibility and win trust;
• Assess your partner’s appetite for change; and
• Gather input for developing your strategic agenda for going forward

Doing nothing but listening, for as long as you can stand it, is the most important thing you can do. Cf Post 332 (Tim Mohan of Chapman noting in hindsight that the most valuable lesson he took from the “First 100 Days” course for law firm leaders was “the importance of having a one-on-one meeting with every equity partner in the firm and listening to their thoughts on the future direction of the firm”).

Ask yourself: “How do I begin to make a difference? What do I want to make a difference about?”

Regrettably, some leaders accept unachievable missions and targets that are far too ambitious, while others become leaders and are told little about what is expected, other than to “continue to make improvements.”  If you believe that the direction you are being asked to undertake is not achievable or able to be accomplished within the timeframe expected, make your feelings known as early as possible in your tenure.

2. Developing working relationships

(Double-Bind: Where do I need to strengthen bonds with people and where do I need to maintain a distance?)

I realized that fundamentally my relations with my partners would never be the same.  Everyone has an agenda when they talk to you.  As managing partner, you become more isolated and can never again just be one of the guys.

Under what circumstances will people voluntarily choose to follow you as a leader?  Usually, for people to follow they need to have a strong relationship with you, they need to feel that they know you as a human being, and they need to feel a connection and sense of empathy for your beliefs, values, and stated priorities.  Concurrently, these very same partners need to feel that you have invested the time to really know and understand them and have a solid grasp on what they value and hold important.

Without a strong sense of relationship between you and each and every one of your colleagues, great goals are impossible to set, performance cannot be sustained, major difficulties cannot be overcome, and new opportunities rarely get created.

Alternatively, there is also the danger that when a leader tends to lose their independence from their colleagues, they can tend to get identified with one cliché or coalition in the firm.  At one particular firm, I overheard one of the partners commenting that a particular proposition, while wildly absurd, would likely still get positive attention, only because the originator was a FOG.  When I naively inquired as to what a FOG was, the partner responded, “Oh, that is an acronym for Friend Of Greg” . . . the firm’s chairman and managing partner.

The double bind emerges, however, when you attempt to keep your distance from colleagues, thus creating a sense of aloofness, potential mistrust, and/or resistance.  As a consequence, you are likely to soon detect increased feelings of division within your group or firm.

Keep In Mind:

Your partners are not interested in your title. They want to know if you care about them as a person; if you really care about enhancing their careers and helping them address their frustrations. Consider building and maintaining relationships as a critical part of your leadership role.  Remember that leading is always done with others, not to them.  Everyone wants a cheerleader, someone to believe in them, and to help them have a can-do attitude.  What can you do to let every partner know that you believe they can become even more of a success?

In addition, remember that as a leader, you are always under a microscope.  Your colleagues observe your decisions (how you make them, and whom you consult with) very carefully along with what you say and the perceived signals you send. You will be barraged with phone calls and e-mails with questions, requests, and advice. You may need some time to transform some relationships.  The most effective agile leaders customize the relationship for each individual.

I didn’t say this was easy!

3. Appearing knowledgeable

(Double-Bind: How do I maintain a balance between knowing what to do and asking for help?)

Notwithstanding all of the qualities I believe I have, I’m feeling like I’m a fish out of water.  And yet, how do I tell anyone what I’m going through?  I need them to continue believing in me and trusting that I know what I’m doing.

When you are new to the function and responsibility of managing and leading, you are starting out with an enormous amount to learn.  You soon find that the skills that made you a highly successful practitioner are not necessarily the same skills that will now transform you into a successful leader.  It’s been said that “Just because you can feed others, does not mean that you can lead others.”

If you come across to your partners as having all the answers, knowing what to do, and showing everyone how to succeed, you risk being seen as imposing your views and uninterested in the opinions of your colleagues.

Alternatively, if as a new leader, you are perceived to overdo “the seek help” side of the spectrum, you may then risk being seen as lightweight and unsubstantial.  Partners may soon wonder if you are ever going to get around to making any meaningful decisions or adding any value.

So the double-bind tension arises as you realize that you should not come across as a “know it all.”  But, at the other end of this spectrum, your people will not be confident in the direction that the firm is taking unless you act as though you know precisely where the firm should be going, what it will encounter along the way, and what the destination will look like once it has been reached.

Keep In Mind:

Heed the old adage: “He who asks a question may be seen to be a fool for five minutes, but he who doesn’t is a fool for the rest of their life.” Most of your people want the leader to succeed and will be eager and willing to help you learn so that you can add value.

All learning challenges a person’s self-image. As a leader, you need to recognize that learning will mean that you will have to modify some of your viewpoints, certainties, and hard-wired biases.

Finally, you will function more effectively when you have a confidant—someone that you can trust and confer with, who understands the joys and successes, the difficulties and frustrations of leadership.  And sometimes that confidant should be an outsider, perhaps a leadership coach, who is prepared to speak truth to power and is not influenced by internal politics.

4. Making decisions

(Double-Bind: When do I strongly influence a decision and when do I just facilitate a consensus?)

In some cases, I’ve learned that I need to be more explicit . . . “[objective A] is where I believe we need to be going and [strategy B] is what I think we need to do to get there, based on the discussions that I’ve had.”

Deciding who will make what decisions and how decisions will be reached are fundamental acts of leadership.

The double bind with decision-making is that on the one hand, you know that your partners will likely take more responsibility for implementing decisions that they themselves have played a part in making.  This argues for wider distribution and a consensus decision-making style.

On the other hand, you know that you must often reconcile the conflicting interests of appealing to partners who don’t want to move too quickly with the market reality that opportunity windows don’t stay open forever.  This argues for a quicker decision than obtaining full consensus might allow.  Whether to influence or facilitate can be a function of firm culture, leader personality, and situational dynamics.  It definitely shapes how your firm will operate.

Keep In Mind:

Things can get very stuck with making certain decisions. Of all the double binds noted, you may very well tend to identify most strongly with either influencing or facilitating as your preferred working style. Research shows that what we are skilled at is what tends to get reinforced.

As a leader, you will confront more complex situations than you may be used to and more complex than your past experiences and habits are suited for.  If you stick rigidly to only one (influence or facilitate) way of handling any particular situation, you are likely to become far less effective as a leader than someone who works at developing their skills in both of these decision-making formats.

What is required here, as with the other double binds, is an appropriate dosage of both influencing and facilitating.

5. Setting action priorities

(Double-Bind: How do I maintain focus on achieving results and remain accepting of uncertainty?)

You don’t want to show any weakness, any self-doubt, or any concern about making a difficult decision.  Remember, you are the leader, which means nothing but confidence and high energy when you walk into a room.

As a leader, you are likely to want to achieve some impressive outcomes during your tenure.  You will go to considerable lengths to achieve those results since your sense of self-worth, personal reputation, and ultimately, your leadership legacy depends on producing measurable outcomes.

Your challenge is that you inhabit a world infused with risk and uncertainty.  So simply being methodical and persevering will not necessarily guarantee that you achieve the end results you want.  As an agile leader, you need to have the ability to be comfortable with uncertainty, to live with it, and not be fazed by it.

You don’t have to like living with a sense of uncertainty, but you must learn how to anticipate new developments, recognize trends, and understand change.  As a leader, you must stay on top of information about the trends affecting the profession, your firm, and your various business opportunities.  Your future is directly linked to your ability to respond both quickly and, when called for, with flexibility.

Leadership is about credibility.  Credibility requires confidence, conviction, and capability.  Allowing others to see that you lack certainty can be dangerous in the real world.  Once doubts about the leader’s certainty begin to form, they can be very difficult to repair.  Every leader knows this and every leader fears it.

Keep In Mind:

It is very human to stay with doing what is comfortable. Make a conscious effort to turn off the old tapes that are playing in your mind and be willing to let go of the past. The most effective way to minimize the intimidating effect of uncertainty is through planning.  The more understanding you have of the likely-to-happen events, the less debilitating any change will be.

Knowing when to unlock from a declared position and advocate a new one calls for courage. Accept that you will not be 100% right in all of your judgment calls. And beware of the mindset imposed by your professional training and your ego’s need to be right.  If any of your decisions turn out to be wrong—and inevitably some will—don’t confuse the business need to change direction with the feeling that you are looking indecisive.

It is very human to get discouraged at times. Sometimes your objectives may be criticized by others. Quite often your goals may seem harder than you thought.  There is always an element of personal sacrifice and a need to remain flexible.  When unexpected events occur, the value of a leader with a high-faith factor cannot be underestimated. Expecting success to follow a period of change has a positive effect on the attitude of your partners.  It is a powerful motivator.

Conclusion

Transforming into an agile leader is no small challenge.  It is very human to get discouraged at times.  Sometimes others will criticize your objectives.  Sometimes attaining your goals will seem harder than you thought.  Just remember that there is always an element of personal sacrifice and a need to remain flexible when one undertakes any leadership role.

If you would like to manage the double binds of leadership more effectively, you must first get a sense of how you currently operate with these different tensions.  The following exercise is included to help you determine your preferred style.