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Leadership Programs Born From Lack of Born Leaders

One of the most common complaints from managing partners in large law firms is a perceived lack of future leaders within their firms, Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young managing partner Jeffrey Lutsky said.

But nine times out of 10, the current leadership is doing nothing about it, he said.

"There was a notion that leaders were born, not made," Lutsky said. "We rejected that."

Stradley Ronon is six months into a novel leadership program that was tailored for the firm with the help of consultants from Altman Weil. The firm selected four younger partners and one partner candidate for the first class, which will last for two years.

The group was put through evaluations at the beginning to identify competencies and weaknesses, and an individual leadership program was created around each attorney's needed areas of improvement.

"The historical model for law firms is to put somebody in a leadership position without any training ... whatsoever," Lutsky said, "often not because of leadership skill but because of a big client, and they hope for the best and hope they don't drive into a ditch."

The goal is to develop some pre-existing skills of potential leaders to create a cadre of people who could fill leadership positions from practice group heads on up, Lutsky said.

"We have not designated these people as the next future leaders, but we certainly have identified these people as attorneys who have showed an interest in it," he said.

The program also helps Stradley Ronon accomplish some things on its to-do list.

One of the program participants is charged with creating an official alumni network for the firm, including creating a directory, updating the firm's Web site and informing the firm's partnership on his progress. Another participant is creating a client relations management software program for the firm.

These real-world projects are what Lutsky said sets the firm's program apart from simply sending attorneys to leadership seminars. There is, however, a seminarlike component to the program.

Lutsky meets with the group monthly to talk about their projects and to educate them on firm leadership topics such as managing conflict, strategic thinking and business models. The program is aligned with the firm's culture to educate the group on leading in a consensus-driven model, he said.

One of the most unique components of the program is the use of individual coaches who work with the participants on their projects and leadership development. Altman Weil provides those coaches.

Altman Weil consultant Tom Clay has been working on leadership development at the practice group level for about six years and said multipurpose leadership programs are really just beginning.

"It's been a struggle to get people to start to recognize the benefits of good leadership," he said.

Although succession planning is a byproduct of these programs, they are really about creating and improving competencies to more effectively run a business.

The use of career coaches by managing partners is one of the fastest-growing phenomena in the profession, Clay said, and they are essential to an effective leadership program.

"If they're serious, they'll invest in the coaches," he said.

Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, which also used Altman Weil to tailor its yearlong leadership program, uses outside coaches from around the country to work with the 14 participants in its inaugural program, which started in March.

Douglas P. Coopersmith, the firm's first chief development officer, called the use of coaches the "great luxury of all time."

He said their use is common in the business world, but the legal industry is behind. Once the first group is done with the program, they will be assigned senior advisers from within the firm to take over where the coaches left off.

Similar to Stradley Ronon, Buchanan Ingersoll also offers internal seminars on topics like law firm economics, delegation and marketing. If a participant needs improvement in certain areas, he or she also has the option of taking a course outside of the firm.

Coopersmith said he never attends the workshops because firm management wants the participants to feel comfortable talking about any concerns or goals they might have.

The first class of the program is composed of some current firm leaders, but Coopersmith said the next group might be a bit smaller and focused on younger attorneys.

"This is not principally succession planning, but certainly, it's a part of it," he said, following up on an earlier comment: "You watch people behave in these programs, and you can pick out the leaders from the nonleaders pretty easily."

The idea that people can't be trained to be leaders is "foolish," Clay said. In order to have a successful leadership-training program, however, certain components are necessary, he said.

Firms can't train everyone and should pick out the "high-potential" people to start, Clay said. Individualized programs then have to be created along with a development plan. The other key component, Clay said, is evaluations during and after the program.

What isn't an effective program, Clay said, is one in which a firm sends attorneys to seminars for a day or a few weeks.

"That's not training -- that's going to seminars," he said.

Reed Smith might feel a little differently. As part of its Reed Smith University, the firm sends a group of attorneys to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to learn leadership skills from business professors.

Reed Smith University Chancellor John F. Smith III said the first group went in October 2004, and subsequent groups have gone at least once a year since that time. Some of the course topics include introduction to strategic management, leaders as an agent of change, the management of talent and managing across organizational boundaries.

The program lasts a week, and each session is about an hour and a half, with some lasting for five hours, Smith said. A typical group would include between 25 and 35 lawyers and would have representatives from several offices.

Smith said the firm made the strategic decision not to use consulting firms and instead go to a business school because the firm's clients were ahead of the game in instilling those leadership skills.

"I certainly agree that you can't put people in class for five days and kind of just say, 'Go and do well,' and forget about them," Smith said.

The firm has been tweaking the program since its inception. It also provides two-day follow-up courses for the graduates of the program and has each graduate creates a 100-day leadership agenda.

"There's a recognition that we can't deliver all the leadership needs just using Wharton," Smith said.

There are several other ideas on the drawing board, but the law firm community has come to this late in the game, he said.

Entering into the game comes with a price tag.

Coopersmith said the firm had the initial investment of the consultant and then had to pay for coaches, travel expenses and outside courses. Although it isn't overly expensive, he said the program is a budget item. The worst is over, though, because the firm can largely run the program itself now that Altman Weil has done the initial setup.

"We've tried to make it scalable so a smaller firm like Stradley Ronon wouldn't be spending what a bigger firm like Buchanan might," Clay said.

If a firm has about four or five people in the program, it wouldn't be serious unless it was spending at least $50,000, he said. Firms can, however, spend five times that much, he said.

Stradley Ronon, Buchanan Ingersoll and Reed Smith all plan to continue their leadership programs for future cycles.

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