Revenue-Focused Leaders

Go to Amazon.com. Locate the books section, type in leadership, and see what shows up. There are more than 197,500 results for this inquiry! Clearly, there is no shortage of approaches to leadership. What is in short supply are models that work for our profession. To help narrow the focus, we will look at a subset of leadership, the art of developing revenue-focused leaders.

It begins with a focus on two areas: The 'How' of leadership, and the 'What' of leadership. The best approach I have seen for the 'How' of leadership is contained in the book 'Primal Leadership' (Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee), wherein they describe six major leadership styles that can drive, or dilute, performance. Effective leaders blend many, if not all, of these styles depending on the situation and their self-awareness.

The 'How' of Leadership

Visionary Style

Many leaders fail to effectively employ the visionary style. It is the art of getting people to see the big picture, understand where they are going, and what they are trying to accomplish. Great visionary leaders articulate a compelling future, one that people readily buy into.

Coaching Style

This style has been shown to generate the highest levels of performance in others. It is about helping people achieve their goals and dreams by raising their personal performance, which in turn helps the organization as a whole. The challenge here is one of time as most leaders find it hard to coach everyone in their groups. The solution ' delegate this responsibility to others.

Affiliative Style

Simply put, this is about caring about others. It is about the human side, where personal relationships are valued and nurtured. As touchy-feely as this may sound, most people want and need real relationships. This style is valuable when seeking to enhance loyalty, teamwork, camaraderie, or when rifts have occurred that need to be healed. The challenge with this as a predominant style is that performance often takes a back seat to relationships, which may result in decreased productivity.

Democratic Style

We don't need to talk much about this style, since it is evident in so many of our firms. The challenge here is when decisions take too long (if ever) to be made, while those that are made can be so diluted as to be virtually useless.

Pacesetting Style

Faster. Better. Smarter. Many law firms are populated with leaders demonstrating this style, often because they are chosen more on their ability to be high performers than for their skills in making others high performers. They raise the bar and push others to perform as they do, which works if not overdone. Typical downsides of this style include burnout and micromanagement.

Commanding Style

'Primal Leadership' points out that this is the most dissonant style of the six, resulting in the worst performance. While commanding has a place (e.g., in crisis situations), often it demoralizes and decreases commitment toward work and group goals.

The 'What' of Leadership

Given the limited time leaders have to spend on leadership (because they first must produce for themselves before taking on leadership responsibilities), it is valuable to pick key leverage points that will produce the best returns. Exceptional revenue-focused leaders seem to focus on four major areas.

Planning

The revenue-focused leader must have a solid plan to help the group (and each individual) know exactly what is expected. There are many ways to build a client development plan: hire a consultant; the leader builds it alone; a task force can be deployed; or the full group can engage in a planning process. Whatever the method, it is important to include as many as possible in crafting the final plan in order to maximize buy-in. It is also necessary to turn vision and strategy into tactics. Effective leaders develop plans with specific action steps, timelines, accountability, and measures.

Culture

Great leaders recognize culture as the glue that holds things together. Let's get clear ' most groups are filled with lawyers who could work elsewhere. What are your leaders doing to create an environment where people can grow, thrive, and where they give their best efforts? How do they make business development, and the fun and rewards that come from it, a major area of focus? What efforts are made to nurture joint marketing and connectedness between group members?

Implementation

Business development is a long road. It can take months, if not years, before a prospect becomes a client. Keeping group members motivated and active is a major challenge, especially when the rewards are so far off.

Effective leaders break long-term goals down to shorter-term action steps. They develop measures for things like exceptional client service, on-site visits, communications to the groups' database, presentations given, etc. They recognize that these activities, when added up, will equal new clients over time. They also hold group members accountable for their commitments, track activity, create contests, and reward progress (as well as eventual success).

Communication

Vision and planning are important, but for many lawyers these have a half-life of around 13 seconds. It takes constant reminders to keep revenue-focused activities top of mind. To that end, leaders should keep goals, plans, and actions steps in front of their groups in as many ways, as many times, as possible. Successful examples have included recognition of top performers, marketing-focused retreats, making client development the first agenda item in group meetings, and sending personal reminders to group members asking for updates.

Conclusion

While revenue-generation is critically important, rarely does it top a lawyer's to do list. Our leaders must keep this fire burning. Using the right styles, and focusing on the right things, will yield the right results. In this era of ever-fungible services, true competitive advantage will go to those who master this aspect of leadership.

David H. Freeman, a former lawyer, is CEO of the David Freeman Consulting Group. He focuses on leadership training and coaching, business development training and coaching, and retreat design, facilitation, and speaking. He can be reached in Boulder, CO, at 303-448-0757 or [email protected].

Go to Amazon.com. Locate the books section, type in leadership, and see what shows up. There are more than 197,500 results for this inquiry! Clearly, there is no shortage of approaches to leadership. What is in short supply are models that work for our profession. To help narrow the focus, we will look at a subset of leadership, the art of developing revenue-focused leaders.

It begins with a focus on two areas: The 'How' of leadership, and the 'What' of leadership. The best approach I have seen for the 'How' of leadership is contained in the book 'Primal Leadership' (Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee), wherein they describe six major leadership styles that can drive, or dilute, performance. Effective leaders blend many, if not all, of these styles depending on the situation and their self-awareness.

The 'How' of Leadership

Visionary Style

Many leaders fail to effectively employ the visionary style. It is the art of getting people to see the big picture, understand where they are going, and what they are trying to accomplish. Great visionary leaders articulate a compelling future, one that people readily buy into.

Coaching Style

This style has been shown to generate the highest levels of performance in others. It is about helping people achieve their goals and dreams by raising their personal performance, which in turn helps the organization as a whole. The challenge here is one of time as most leaders find it hard to coach everyone in their groups. The solution ' delegate this responsibility to others.

Affiliative Style

Simply put, this is about caring about others. It is about the human side, where personal relationships are valued and nurtured. As touchy-feely as this may sound, most people want and need real relationships. This style is valuable when seeking to enhance loyalty, teamwork, camaraderie, or when rifts have occurred that need to be healed. The challenge with this as a predominant style is that performance often takes a back seat to relationships, which may result in decreased productivity.

Democratic Style

We don't need to talk much about this style, since it is evident in so many of our firms. The challenge here is when decisions take too long (if ever) to be made, while those that are made can be so diluted as to be virtually useless.

Pacesetting Style

Faster. Better. Smarter. Many law firms are populated with leaders demonstrating this style, often because they are chosen more on their ability to be high performers than for their skills in making others high performers. They raise the bar and push others to perform as they do, which works if not overdone. Typical downsides of this style include burnout and micromanagement.

Commanding Style

'Primal Leadership' points out that this is the most dissonant style of the six, resulting in the worst performance. While commanding has a place (e.g., in crisis situations), often it demoralizes and decreases commitment toward work and group goals.

The 'What' of Leadership

Given the limited time leaders have to spend on leadership (because they first must produce for themselves before taking on leadership responsibilities), it is valuable to pick key leverage points that will produce the best returns. Exceptional revenue-focused leaders seem to focus on four major areas.

Planning

The revenue-focused leader must have a solid plan to help the group (and each individual) know exactly what is expected. There are many ways to build a client development plan: hire a consultant; the leader builds it alone; a task force can be deployed; or the full group can engage in a planning process. Whatever the method, it is important to include as many as possible in crafting the final plan in order to maximize buy-in. It is also necessary to turn vision and strategy into tactics. Effective leaders develop plans with specific action steps, timelines, accountability, and measures.

Culture

Great leaders recognize culture as the glue that holds things together. Let's get clear ' most groups are filled with lawyers who could work elsewhere. What are your leaders doing to create an environment where people can grow, thrive, and where they give their best efforts? How do they make business development, and the fun and rewards that come from it, a major area of focus? What efforts are made to nurture joint marketing and connectedness between group members?

Implementation

Business development is a long road. It can take months, if not years, before a prospect becomes a client. Keeping group members motivated and active is a major challenge, especially when the rewards are so far off.

Effective leaders break long-term goals down to shorter-term action steps. They develop measures for things like exceptional client service, on-site visits, communications to the groups' database, presentations given, etc. They recognize that these activities, when added up, will equal new clients over time. They also hold group members accountable for their commitments, track activity, create contests, and reward progress (as well as eventual success).

Communication

Vision and planning are important, but for many lawyers these have a half-life of around 13 seconds. It takes constant reminders to keep revenue-focused activities top of mind. To that end, leaders should keep goals, plans, and actions steps in front of their groups in as many ways, as many times, as possible. Successful examples have included recognition of top performers, marketing-focused retreats, making client development the first agenda item in group meetings, and sending personal reminders to group members asking for updates.

Conclusion

While revenue-generation is critically important, rarely does it top a lawyer's to do list. Our leaders must keep this fire burning. Using the right styles, and focusing on the right things, will yield the right results. In this era of ever-fungible services, true competitive advantage will go to those who master this aspect of leadership.

David H. Freeman, a former lawyer, is CEO of the David Freeman Consulting Group. He focuses on leadership training and coaching, business development training and coaching, and retreat design, facilitation, and speaking. He can be reached in Boulder, CO, at 303-448-0757 or [email protected].