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Here are a few books on leadership that I recommend: The No Asshole Rule:  Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t Robert Sutton The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action Robert Sutton and Jeffrey Pfeffer Leadership Is An Art Max DePree Committed Teams:  Three Steps to Inspiring Passion and Performance Mario Moussa The Art of Thinking Clearly Rolf Dobelli Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking Susan Cain Learn

LAW FIRM PARTNERS, TALENT EXPERTS, AND STANFORD LAW STUDENTS JOIN FORCES TO TACKLE GENDER PARITY THROUGH INAUGURAL WOMEN IN LAW HACKATHON  Diversity Lab, in partnership with Stanford Law School and Bloomberg Law, launch the Women in Law Hackathon aimed at advancing women in the legal profession DENVER, March 9, 2016 – Fifty-four top law firms have signed up to participate in the Women in Law Hackathon, a new Shark Tank-style pitch competition aimed at generating innovative ideas to close the gen

Do millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers in the U.S. have different beliefs about what makes a leader effective? While it’s commonly believed that the generations’ preferences are substantially different, research from the Center for Creative Leadership  shows when it comes to leadership, the generations are more alike than different. Read the article here.

Knowing oneself is the best way to begin understanding others.  That’s why we often start a leadership program with some sort of assessment, such as Myers Briggs, the Change Style Indicator or FIRO-B.  Chris Musselwhite, writes in INC. about the benefits of self-awareness: “It’s easy to see how pretending to know everything when you don’t can create situations that can be problematic for your entire organization. On the other hand, when you take responsibility for what yo

Chris Musselwhite and Tammie Plouffe created the Influence Style Indicator, which I use to teach influence to lawyers and other professionals  Here is a brief article on the approach. “Effective leadership today relies more than ever on influencing others — impacting their ideas, opinions, and actions. While influence has always been a valuable managerial skill, today’s highly collaborative organizations make it essential. Consider how often you have to influence people who don’t even repo

Great, and brief, article on increasing influence here: “In 2009 and 2010, Discovery Learning, Inc. and Innovative Pathways conducted research to identify and measure influence styles. They created five categories: Asserting: you insist that your ideas are heard and you challenge the ideas of others Convincing: you put forward your ideas and offer logical, rational reasons to convince others of your point of view Negotiating: you look for compromises and make concessions to reach outcomes

Persuasion will be the topic for a free one-hour webinar on May 29th.  We’ll discuss why persuasion is challenging in law firms, a model for developing a persuasion strategy and how corporate storytelling can help you be more persuasive.  Register below.  I hope that you can join us. How does one lead without authority or control? How does one bring about positive change in an organization that is inherently risk-averse? How does a law firm manager influence and persuade others to effect c

The Legal Marketing Association (LMA) held its annual conference last week in Orlando, Florida, attended by more than 1,200 professional marketers. The buzz focused on a range of topics, from adapting to the “new normal” and sophisticated pricing strategies to using technology to market legal services and considering generational differences in your marketing message. Read my top 5 here.

Leadership for Lawyers President Mark Beese received the Legal Marketing Association’s (LMA) Hall of Fame Award, the profession’s highest honor, at the 2014 LMA Annual Conference held in Orlando, Florida on April 4th. The honor represents the highest level of experience and leadership in legal marketing and recognizes contributions made by individuals for the benefit of the profession, the association and its community of professionals. This year two individuals were recognized.  Nat Slavin, Par