Fee Earner

Training

Leadership Presentations

What is the difference between leadership and management?

Management is about ensuring the day to day & week to week tasks are achieved.

Leadership is about creating the right culture or working environment for fee earners and business services to achieve objectives.

Leadership is about setting guiding principles for the firm or department. It’s about finding an answer to the question, 'how do we create a culture in the firm which enables people to achieve their best without being told what to do at every step?'

The particular challenge with this in law firms can be that they tend to have a autocratic hierarchical structure, which does not encourage challenges to the way things are done.

What is a Leadership Presentation?

A leadership presentation is defined in a number of ways:

It takes the long or strategic view. It takes a relatively small immediate issue and puts it within a strategic context.

So for example, lets say there is an issue around limited pay increases this year. In isolation this can be seen as purely negative. If this is presented within the context of all the benefits received by employees and within the context of historical growth and then the strategic direction of the firm, then it can be seen as relatively small. Still disappointing but in a strategic context it makes more sense.

The leadership presentation explains why a decision is a good one from the firm's overall perspective.

For example, there may be a planned office move. For some this may be seen a s a negative because they are not so comfortable with change, will not sit next to the same people etc. The leadership presentation puts the change within the overall context of the firm's direction. Once explained these sorts of changes are often perceived quite differently.

Skills required for a leadership presentation

More than with a regular presentation the skills required include:

1. Strategic thinking
2. Making the message concise
3. Influencing through logic
4. Passion & energy
5. Use of voice and powerful words

For an initial discussion on leadership presentations at your firm please email us at info@itd.com or call 0870 777 6734