The leadership trap

5 Nov 2012News

By Michael Shaw, Consultant and Former Managing Partner, Cobbetts

Years ago, a friend passed a quote to me that went something like this: “Every great organisation lies in the extended shadow of one great man”.

I call this cereal packet leadership – it is a bit like the artist’s impression of the happy family on the back of the cornflakes packet, which I grew up with as a child in the early sixties. It conjures up the notion that there is a preferred form of leadership in the heroic style, whereby the leader dominates the organisation.

In the legal sector, some firms are dominated by truly great leaders who enjoy their qualities by virtue of nature rather than nurture, others by our quota of those who display sociopathic traits, and I suppose the remainder are led by those who simply care deeply and try to do their best.

If you are intent on raising self awareness, there are countless sites on the web offering insight into the ever-increasing numbers of leadership styles which have been identified. It worries me that, while I led a business for a very long time, I’m not sure that I ever consciously debated in my mind which style I might adopt.

You can just picture the scenario; a leader knows he faces a tough task so opens the pantry door and says to himself: “ I know, if I just moderate coercive with democratic, but keep the tempo up with pacesetting and counter with coaching, then I will have it cracked!”

Call me simple, but I like the clarity of Robbins and Finley’s four attitudes to organisational management, which they describe as follows.¹

Pummel. Terror: “Do what I say or you will die”.
Push. Distress: “Do what you must do or the enterprise will die”.
Pull. Eustress: “Do what you must do to achieve the future you dream of”.
Pamper. Torpor: “Do what you feel like doing”.

To my mind, the real problem a lot of UK law firms have right now is that the economic woes we’ve lived through for the past four years, coupled with the implications of the Legal Services Act, have left PULL well and truly in the pantry cupboard.

The focus has necessarily been inward facing just to survive. Even if PUMMEL was recognised purely as a short-term measure to create a burning platform, the driven performance management style denoted by PUSH has become the norm for many firms and they are stuck in a rut with it.

The shift in our supervisory regime to outcomes-focused regulation has certainly not been great timing, as even that has caused firms to fixate on structure and internal processes.

There are tremendous opportunities available to firms that either already enjoy an outward-facing perspective in their businesses or have the leadership ability to develop one quickly. The winners in the market are likely to be those that are truly client centric.

The leadership trap is the inability to balance PUSH with building a firm vision and a culture of innovation, which only a fair and sustained dose of PULL is likely to bring about, even if a foot still has to be kept on the gas.

After my last blog post, you may reasonably expect that, as I am now leading an organisation of one (me), I am well and truly clear of this leadership trap. Unfortunately that’s not strictly true as I do have one colleague, Jacques Rouselle, who has a strong preference for PAMPER – and we all know the absolute mayhem that can produce in an organisation!