Law Firm Leadership: Leadership Isn't Management

Most marketing professionals and other non-attorney management realize that developing one's leadership skills is critical to success in a law firm. There is lots of guidance available ' in books, articles, blogs, conferences and more. Fortunately, much of it is specific to the business models of the service industry.

But let's be clear: Leadership is important, but it is not the same as management. You won't be as effective a leader of your organization unless you understand the difference. And, you have to consider how the management of a professional service enterprise is changing. Our marketplace is changing at a breakneck pace and on many fronts. Our firms are changing as well, from how we charge clients to how we compensate attorneys. A new kind of approach is required for effective management and leadership.

How Managing a Professional Firm Has Changed

The difference between managing professional firms ' versus leading them ' came to light to Suzanne Lowe as she conducted research with scores of professional service firm managers, senior business developers and seasoned marketers for her new book, The Integration Imperative (Professional Services Books: 2009).

Many of these people remarked about the early days of the professional and business-to-business service arena, where executive committee members and managing partners held almost honorary positions (more akin to figureheads than actual managers). Leaders of professional firms tended to address marketing and business development effectiveness at the individual, geographic, or practice level (and still do).

This organizational model created a troubling legacy for today's firms. When it comes to growing their revenues and market share, today's professional firms aren't effectively integrating their marketing and selling functions. Most firms struggle to overcome numerous organizational structural and cultural silos. Their functional disconnects prevent professional firms from competitive effectiveness, impede their financial success, and hinder them from delivering optimal client service.

Even worse, professional service firms appear to be looking for marketplace effectiveness in all the traditional expansion tactics such as mergers, geographic expansion or star lateral recruiting. The real Holy Grail lies inside the firm: harnessing people differently, ensuring that marketing and business development is integrated into every function, and finding ways to engage attorneys and staff around a common vision and purpose.

Tomorrow's law firm leaders will be expected to achieve meaningful gains in competitive advantage, market share and profitability. In order to do this, they will have to harness their people differently through three “best practice” structural frameworks and three new cultural paradigms that benefit all the firm's stakeholders.

Three Structural Frameworks

The Process Imperative

Tomorrow's professional firm executives will manage their organizations' go-to-market processes. But this focus must be on more than just watching the hand-offs from one functional “silo” to another. The Process Imperative calls for the creation of a broader functional oversight for marketing and business development, and a better prioritization of all marketing and business development initiatives. It includes making the marketing, business development, and client service processes more visible to everyone in the firm. Marketers need to become process engineers ' creating and evaluating integrative marketing and business development processes that can be applied throughout the firm. The current recession has forced many firms to “do more with less,” a trend that will not soon end. Law firm manager need to continually reinvent processes to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

The Skills Imperative

Tomorrow's professional firm executives need to direct and support each person's pathway to marketing and business development skills growth. Of course, many professional enterprises have well-recognized career pathways ' but these are focused mainly on revenue-generating practitioners. The Skills Imperative calls for managers to reframe advancement pathways for lawyers and staff, and to more clearly direct the steps every professional can take toward competency growth in marketing and business development. Marketers need to take responsibility for their own skill development and create opportunities for their staff.

The Support Imperative

Tomorrow's professional firm executives will redefine the lateral working relationships between one's peers in human resources, information technology, finance, legal, and other operational functions. Like lawyers, staff-level directors often act in silos of their own. Many professional service firms already enjoy the results delivered by the friendly, informal working relationships that exist between these support functions and their marketing and business development colleagues.

Three Cultural Models

When directing improvements of their firms' process, skills and support structures, managers should also direct three cultural models that foster the integration of marketing and business development.

The first cultural imperative is the adoption and communication of common vocabulary and process about marketing and business development. At too many professional firms, people struggle with serious misunderstandings about what marketing and business development actually are, and what attorneys and staff should be doing. Firms benefit from understanding the “company way” of marketing and business development, from the firm brand statement and elevator speech to acceptable processes for business development and client service.

The second cultural imperative is the creation of formal collaboration, shared accountability, and co-leadership standards for marketing and business development. At too many professional firms, people experience problems with boundary confusion, unevenly assigned accountabilities, or feelings of marginalization regarding marketing and business development. It's hard to drive toward marketplace effectiveness when people aren't working together as best they could.

The third cultural imperative is making expectations more explicit about how everyone can contribute to marketing and business development. At too many professional firms, job descriptions and performance measures are either nonexistent or outdated when it comes to outlining exactly how every function can help the enterprise achieve greater competitive advantage. This is where the difference between leadership and management is most obvious.

It's Time

It's time for law firms to move beyond their legacies of siloed marketing and business development functions. In order to do so, they will need to embrace the best practices of leadership, as well management principles about how to run a professional enterprise. The structures and cultural standards of the Integration Imperative can serve as important guideposts toward competing more effectively, realizing meaningful market share growth and serving clients optimally.

Mark Beese, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is president of Leadership for Lawyers, a consultancy that serves law firms in the areas of leadership development, business development and marketing. (www.leadershipforlawyers.com). Suzanne C. Lowe just released her new book, 'The Integration Imperative: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos ' Once and for All ' in Professional Service Firms'.

Most marketing professionals and other non-attorney management realize that developing one's leadership skills is critical to success in a law firm. There is lots of guidance available ' in books, articles, blogs, conferences and more. Fortunately, much of it is specific to the business models of the service industry.

But let's be clear: Leadership is important, but it is not the same as management. You won't be as effective a leader of your organization unless you understand the difference. And, you have to consider how the management of a professional service enterprise is changing. Our marketplace is changing at a breakneck pace and on many fronts. Our firms are changing as well, from how we charge clients to how we compensate attorneys. A new kind of approach is required for effective management and leadership.

How Managing a Professional Firm Has Changed

The difference between managing professional firms ' versus leading them ' came to light to Suzanne Lowe as she conducted research with scores of professional service firm managers, senior business developers and seasoned marketers for her new book, The Integration Imperative (Professional Services Books: 2009).

Many of these people remarked about the early days of the professional and business-to-business service arena, where executive committee members and managing partners held almost honorary positions (more akin to figureheads than actual managers). Leaders of professional firms tended to address marketing and business development effectiveness at the individual, geographic, or practice level (and still do).

This organizational model created a troubling legacy for today's firms. When it comes to growing their revenues and market share, today's professional firms aren't effectively integrating their marketing and selling functions. Most firms struggle to overcome numerous organizational structural and cultural silos. Their functional disconnects prevent professional firms from competitive effectiveness, impede their financial success, and hinder them from delivering optimal client service.

Even worse, professional service firms appear to be looking for marketplace effectiveness in all the traditional expansion tactics such as mergers, geographic expansion or star lateral recruiting. The real Holy Grail lies inside the firm: harnessing people differently, ensuring that marketing and business development is integrated into every function, and finding ways to engage attorneys and staff around a common vision and purpose.

Tomorrow's law firm leaders will be expected to achieve meaningful gains in competitive advantage, market share and profitability. In order to do this, they will have to harness their people differently through three “best practice” structural frameworks and three new cultural paradigms that benefit all the firm's stakeholders.

Three Structural Frameworks

The Process Imperative

Tomorrow's professional firm executives will manage their organizations' go-to-market processes. But this focus must be on more than just watching the hand-offs from one functional “silo” to another. The Process Imperative calls for the creation of a broader functional oversight for marketing and business development, and a better prioritization of all marketing and business development initiatives. It includes making the marketing, business development, and client service processes more visible to everyone in the firm. Marketers need to become process engineers ' creating and evaluating integrative marketing and business development processes that can be applied throughout the firm. The current recession has forced many firms to “do more with less,” a trend that will not soon end. Law firm manager need to continually reinvent processes to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

The Skills Imperative

Tomorrow's professional firm executives need to direct and support each person's pathway to marketing and business development skills growth. Of course, many professional enterprises have well-recognized career pathways ' but these are focused mainly on revenue-generating practitioners. The Skills Imperative calls for managers to reframe advancement pathways for lawyers and staff, and to more clearly direct the steps every professional can take toward competency growth in marketing and business development. Marketers need to take responsibility for their own skill development and create opportunities for their staff.

The Support Imperative

Tomorrow's professional firm executives will redefine the lateral working relationships between one's peers in human resources, information technology, finance, legal, and other operational functions. Like lawyers, staff-level directors often act in silos of their own. Many professional service firms already enjoy the results delivered by the friendly, informal working relationships that exist between these support functions and their marketing and business development colleagues.

Three Cultural Models

When directing improvements of their firms' process, skills and support structures, managers should also direct three cultural models that foster the integration of marketing and business development.

The first cultural imperative is the adoption and communication of common vocabulary and process about marketing and business development. At too many professional firms, people struggle with serious misunderstandings about what marketing and business development actually are, and what attorneys and staff should be doing. Firms benefit from understanding the “company way” of marketing and business development, from the firm brand statement and elevator speech to acceptable processes for business development and client service.

The second cultural imperative is the creation of formal collaboration, shared accountability, and co-leadership standards for marketing and business development. At too many professional firms, people experience problems with boundary confusion, unevenly assigned accountabilities, or feelings of marginalization regarding marketing and business development. It's hard to drive toward marketplace effectiveness when people aren't working together as best they could.

The third cultural imperative is making expectations more explicit about how everyone can contribute to marketing and business development. At too many professional firms, job descriptions and performance measures are either nonexistent or outdated when it comes to outlining exactly how every function can help the enterprise achieve greater competitive advantage. This is where the difference between leadership and management is most obvious.

It's Time

It's time for law firms to move beyond their legacies of siloed marketing and business development functions. In order to do so, they will need to embrace the best practices of leadership, as well management principles about how to run a professional enterprise. The structures and cultural standards of the Integration Imperative can serve as important guideposts toward competing more effectively, realizing meaningful market share growth and serving clients optimally.

Mark Beese, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is president of Leadership for Lawyers, a consultancy that serves law firms in the areas of leadership development, business development and marketing. (www.leadershipforlawyers.com). Suzanne C. Lowe just released her new book, 'The Integration Imperative: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos ' Once and for All ' in Professional Service Firms'.