Leadership

I recently did a search for books about leadership at amazon.com.  My searched turned up 96,703 results in a variety of formats from paperbacks to hardbacks to Kindle books and audio books. Although millions of words have been written about one word, understanding leadership doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated.  Leadership is not – […]

Do you know what all great leaders have in common? They are willing to get out of their fish bowls. What I mean by that is great leaders adapt their behavior. They are aware of how they are perceived by others, and they learn to adapt their behavior in a variety of ways. Why is […]

I remember once hearing someone say, “If you’re laughing, you’re learning.”  I agree wholeheartedly.   With that in mind, I’ve got to recommend a funny, smart, enlightening read: A is for Asshole: The Grownups’ ABCs of Conflict Resolution, by attorney and mediator, Victoria Pynchon. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in this book.  But, there are […]

Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put […]

Remember the movie Love Story?  If you do, you’ll remember Jennifer Cavalleri’s famous line to her husband, Oliver.  They’d had an argument.  He ran out.  He came back to find her crying on the steps of their apartment, and he began to say he was sorry.  And Jenny says . . . wait for it […]

I talk with my clients a lot about the importance of working with “A” clients. Why? “A” clients are a pleasure to work with, they listen to your advice, they pay their bills, and they refer other “A” clients to you. “D” clients on the other hand . . . well. The other great thing […]

In Hamlet, Polonius prepares his son, Laertes for travel with the following advice – “This above all: To thine own self be true.” Unless leaders can first be true to themselves, they cannot be true to others. Great leaders follow Polonius’ advice, although it is no easy task. To be true to yourself, means to […]

Before I went to law school, I was a professional musician. I played the guitar and sang. Still do – sometimes. Music has always been a really big part of my life. In fact, my first TV memory was when the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show. (I was only four years old, and […]

When you envision yourself and your law practice, what do you see? Your answer to this question will have a dramatic impact on how well you fare during these scary times. Are you creating your firm or are you just re-creating what thousands of lawyers before you have done? If you’ve never thought about these […]