Influence

Leading Lawyers: Your Most Potent Tool is Your Mindset

By Dr. Larry Richard on November 17, 2015

Posted in Change Management, Influence, Leadership, People Skills

This post was originally published at the Legal Executive Institute website, a ThomsonReuters site, on April 15, 2015:

Are you a practicing lawyer who is transitioning into a leadership role? Whether it’s as a managing partner, practice group leader, office managing partner, or executive committee member—in all cases, to be effective as a leader, you need to make a significant shift in your mindset in several ways.

First, many lawyer-leaders default to the role of “manager”—making sure that important things get done in a regular and predictable way (timesheets are turned in, mentoring younger lawyers takes place, work is assigned rationally, etc.). There is certainly a need for management, but today the greater need in law firms is for leadership, i.e., determining what direction your constituents should go in, and then encouraging them to voluntarily go there. So in addition to thinking like a manager, you also have to think like a leader.

Continue Reading Leading Lawyers: Your Most Potent Tool is Your Mindset

The Psychologically Savvy Leader

By Dr. Larry Richard on November 14, 2013

Posted in Change Management, Leadership, Organizational Behavior, People Skills, Resilience, Self-Management

In talking to law firm leaders these days, what I am hearing most frequently are their concerns about disruptive change and its impact on their ability to maintain a profitable and competitive firm.

One consequence of this increased focus on … Continue Reading

Accountability 101 – Part four

By Dr. Larry Richard on May 22, 2013

Posted in Accountability, Change Management

In three previous posts, I’ve discussed the psychology of how to hold partners accountable. I focused primarily on approaches that work well with individuals.

In this post, I want to introduce you to three approaches that are more strategic, and … Continue Reading

Accountability 101 – Part three

By Dr. Larry Richard on March 25, 2013

Posted in Accountability, Change Management

In a previous post (Accountability 101 – Part two) I mentioned that to achieve accountability on the part of partners, you need to:

Use a buy-in approach. Avoid either coercive or “incentivizing” approaches.
Be proactive, not reactive.
Use multiple interventions,

Accountability 101 – Part two

By Dr. Larry Richard on March 5, 2013

Posted in Accountability, Change Management

This is part two of a series of posts on partner accountability. To recap, in order to achieve accountability, you need to:

Use a buy-in approach. Avoid either coercive or “incentivizing” approaches.
Be proactive, not reactive.
Use multiple interventions, not

Accountability 101 – Part one

By Dr. Larry Richard on February 19, 2013

Posted in Accountability, Change Management

How do you “hold partners accountable?” It’s the beginning of the year, and many law firm leaders are still struggling to get their partners to complete some of the non-billable tasks that are vital to the firm’s success.

In the … Continue Reading