Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / 215: 5 Law Firm Leadership Mistakes You May Be Making

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215: 5 Law Firm Leadership Mistakes You May Be Making · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

• 0:00
  Davina: There are no bad teams, only bad leaders. Whether or not you agree with that statement, the only person's behavior you can fully control is your own. So before we address issues with anyone else, first, we must look at our own behavior and assess how we could be better and how we could do things better.
• 0:22
  Intro: Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more? Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams.
• 1:08
  Now here's
• 1:13
  Davina: Hi, this is Devina. And before we jump into today's show, I'd like first to introduce you to some of our sponsors. When prospective clients are looking for an attorney, they usually turn to Google first. Optimize My Firm helps law firms grow their practices and attract more right fit clients through on page and back end search engine optimization. Optimize My Firm can help your firm rank higher on Google so that clients can find you before they find your competition.
• 1:44
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• 2:57
  Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick. And today's topic was inspired by numerous conversations I've been having lately with women law firm owners about their troubles with employees or other people on their teams like independent contractors or vendors. And it got me thinking about how most of us see employee issues as an issue with the employee, the other person, and never an issue with our own leadership or law firm management skills. And to be clear, this is not about passing judgment on anyone because over the years I've had to take a really good look at myself as a leader and I've not always liked what I've seen.
• 3:39
  And so I've devoted a lot of time to sort of the study of leadership and management to improve those skills. Like many of you, I rolled solo for many years. I have started and scaled multiple businesses during my career. I'm a serial entrepreneur largely because I'm a rebel. I'm a maverick and essentially someone who wants to do things my way.
• 4:01
  I have a vision and a way that I work in a way that I want things done. And although I quote unquote played well with others as a child, if you believe my old report cards, the older I've gotten, the more independent and stubborn I've become. And I've never been good with bosses to tell you the truth. I mean, I'm a rule follower and I always worked well. I got my work done, but I think it's because I think I can do it better, whatever it is.
• 4:29
  I've always had that sort of mentality that I've had to work through. And so when I became a boss and started dealing with people who work for me, I had to really learn and develop those skills. As I matured both as a person and a business owner, I realized that if I wanted to achieve big audacious goals, I couldn't continue to travel alone as they say. I would need a solid team to help me. And that's led me to wanna understand more and more about how to be the best leader that I can be.
• 5:02
  So between my own journey into leadership and guiding other women law firm owners, as they learn to become better leaders of their teams, as they're scaling their law firm business and adding team members, I've identified five mistakes I think most of us make starting out as leaders, and I thought you'd enjoy learning from them. So I've made all five, so don't feel bad if you've made some too. As Maya Angelou so wisely said, when we know better, we do better. So let's dive in and look at mistake number one. Mistake number one, not having a clear vision and purpose beyond your own pocketbook.
• 5:38
  Sure, we all wanna make enough money to live comfortably. We wanna live out the life of our dreams and that requires wealth and money to do a lot of the things that we want to do. And some may have that vision more than others, but true leaders envision something with a larger purpose. So when you're starting out, your goal may be to open your law firm business and make enough money to pay your bills. And then you start to develop a larger vision of what your law firm can be.
• 6:05
  If you want to galvanize other people around you to help you execute on your vision, then you will need a vision with a larger purpose, a goal or a movement that could possibly impact hundreds or hundreds of thousands even. Movements inspire followers. So what does that mean for you and your law firm? Instead of merely considering how much money you want your law firm to make, think about the impact you want your law firm business to have on other people involved, including the clients you serve, the people that you employ, and all of those who count on your business to help them on the community, on the planet, right? What good work do you wanna put out into the world?
• 6:49
  So I'll give you an example of this from, let's say the family law perspective. Your vision may be that I want to help more families divorce amicably so that fewer children suffer, right? Or fewer people suffer from that process. Or I want to help people divorce more amicably so that they can move forward quickly with their lives. So there's a larger movement beyond, I want to create a successful business that makes me a lot of money.
• 7:20
  Because when you have a larger purpose, then people are more apt to want to follow you. And I think oftentimes when we're hiring employees, we forget to talk about the purpose of our practice and why it's such important work. If you have a personal injury firm, your purpose in life may be to make sure that people who've been in accidents that weren't their fault, that were the negligence of the others, that they're able to get the resources they need to help them move forward with their lives. And that's a really meaningful purpose. And a lot of people would be drawn to doing that kind of meaningful work.
• 7:55
  So get clear on your purpose and why people are better for having worked with you and your law firm. That would be mistake number one, not having a clear vision beyond your own pocketbook. All right, mistake number two, not taking the time and devoting the energy to learning about how to be a good leader. So if you've never led before, then you likely don't have the skills to lead. Leadership, like any other skill, is one we can learn if we take the time to do so.
• 8:25
  Few people are natural born leaders, though we like to think that that's not the case. And we often like to think that we are the exception, that we are the one who is a natural born leader. But the reality of it is is that most people are not natural born leaders. And even if you are a natural born leader, it takes cultivation of your skills like any other talent, natural raw talent you might have. But what most of us do when we start a business is we focus on doing everything.
• 8:50
  Right? We start out as technicians and then we hire a person or two with the hopes that after we give them a few tasks to complete, they'll be able to figure things out. We expect often without clear communication of those expectations that they will learn by osmosis and perform without mistakes. When they do make mistakes, we blame them. Even if we only do this silently to ourselves, oftentimes we blame because we don't want their mistakes to reflect poorly on us as the owner of the business.
• 9:23
  And we can blame them for being incompetent when in fact they're just untrained or unmanaged, right? So we fear being labeled like micromanagers so often that we on the side of hands off management. If we have never been taught how to manage other people, how can we expect to be good at it? Right? So here's my challenge to you.
• 9:43
  The next time you have an issue with an employee, I want you to ask yourself, what could I have done better as their leader? As Jocko Willink and Lake Babin saying in their book Extreme Ownership, there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. Whether or not you agree with that statement, the only person's behavior you can fully control is your own. So before we address issues with anyone else, first, we must look at our own behavior and assess how we could be better and how we can do things better. So let me give you an example, because this is not about letting incompetent employees off the hook by any means, all right?
• 10:22
  But let me give you some examples to help you understand my meaning. So number one, if you make a poor hire, someone who obviously is not qualified to do the job and makes a lot of mistakes, then look at your hiring system and ask, how did they slip through the cracks of my hiring system, right? You may not know until two or three weeks into it that somebody's not gonna be a good fit. Forgive yourself for it, right? Because we're humans and people do a good job oftentimes of hiding things, but also ask yourself the critical question of how did they slip through the cracks?
• 10:58
  What can I add to my hiring system that might have caught this person and found this out before they worked with me for two or three weeks and we got to know them? If a team member is taking advantage of your flexible work from home, two days a week policy, and they're spending more time out of the office than in the office, even though you require them to be in the office some days, or they're not getting their work done, they work from home, but they're not getting their work done. Ask in what ways could I have been clearer about the policy and what consequences am I willing to enforce when someone breaks the policy? I've seen this too often where women law firm owners will have a policy in their manual, but then something happens with an employee and they forget that they should reference their policy manual, go back to the policy manual, have a meeting with the person and say, hey, let's pull out the policy manual. This is our policy and you've been violating it.
• 11:55
  And I've been letting you get away with it and we need to stop because this impacts other employees as well who may have to pick up your work because you're not here, or they may see you being out all the time and wonder why they can't do the same. So whatever it is, reference, ask yourself, in what ways could I have been clearer at the outset? How can I have set those clear expectations and what consequences am I willing to enforce when someone breaks the policy? So if a team member is not meeting deadlines, ask yourself, did I give a clear deadline? Because oftentimes I've seen women law firm owners as they become managers of people that they don't set clear expectations.
• 12:33
  They don't give a deadline. They just say, hey, I need you to do this. And they don't tell them by when or any other information. When they miss the deadline, did I let it go or did I enforce it? I mean, I let it go the last three times.
• 12:45
  Why should they take me seriously now? How did I enforce it? What were the consequences I'm willing to enforce if they miss a deadline? Right? So question yourself as a leader and ask, where could I have done better?
• 12:58
  So in all of these examples, you'll see how we ask ourselves what we did or didn't do and how we can improve our own behavior going forward. It doesn't mean we have to take the blame again for the employee's actions or inactions as much as we need to take responsibility for the situation and the outcome because we're the leader. Mistake number three, not learning about and practicing how to cultivate other leaders. If we have a small law firm, we may be the only leader for many years in fact, but as our law firm grows, we will need to begin to cultivate other leaders within the firm. And those could be managers of processes or managers of people, but they need to be people we can trust to take some of the leadership burden off of our shoulders.
• 13:42
  So we're not the one having to do all of the strategic thinking and implementation, right? So why not start that right at the beginning by hiring people with leadership potential, self starters, critical thinkers who are not afraid to take ownership of a project and be accountable for its completion instead of just quote unquote warm bodies. Here's what that may look like when we're making this mistake. We hire staff and attorneys, but we continue to make all the operational decisions within the firm and carry the full mental load. Everything must be run by us before it goes out.
• 14:18
  We can pay responsibility, but not authority. The senior attorney can run the case, but has no authority to hire or fire new associates or even paralegals, or even bringing that to management as recommendation. The senior paralegal can manage process, but has no recourse if the processes that she's attempting to manage are not being properly implemented by the other paralegals. So she has responsibility, but she doesn't have authority to do anything about it if nobody's following the rules. We failed to invest in leadership training for our team in a way that teaches them to take full ownership and responsibility for their projects.
• 14:55
  Mistake number four, not hiring for leadership. Wanting warm bodies instead of critical thinkers, right? Often mistake number three is preceded by mistake number four, which is failing to hire leadership potential. People who are not just doers, but critical thinkers. Instead, we seek to hire warm bodies or another pair of hands, people who are not qualified enough to work in a busy office.
• 15:23
  Literally, you might say, I just need a warm body. I've heard many, many women law firm owners say that, I just need a warm body to help me get through some of this backlog. Most often because you've waited until you're desperate to hire instead of hiring proactively and giving yourself more time to be choosy about who you hire. Number two is you have no mechanism in your hiring process for assessing leadership potential. You don't understand the strengths and weaknesses of potential hires before you hire them.
• 15:53
  You instead just go with what they're telling you and your gut or worse, there is no hiring system at all. You think only about your law firm's immediate short term needs when you hire someone instead of thinking about creating career paths for your employees. So here's a pro tip for you. If you do not create a career path for your employees inside of your firm, anyone with any ambitious is going to look for a career path outside of your law firm. All right, last mistake I'm gonna share with you today.
• 16:23
  Number five, mistake number five, not incorporating ongoing leadership and management training for both you and your employees as your law firm business grows. Like subject matter expertise, we deepen our knowledge when we invest in training and education for leadership and law firm management. We may not need to do this for all of our employees, but if you have expectations and desires for others in your organization to help you take over critical aspects of operations, you need to be investing in their education so they can grow personally and professionally. This might look like bringing in outside experts once a quarter or even once a year to focus solely on team building, leadership, management, and working with different personalities. It might look like sending your chosen leaders to a CLD on law firm management or leadership, or even getting them involved in online courses on those topics.
• 17:15
  It might mean you host trainings to teach your potential leaders. So you might teach them what you know. If you've been making these mistakes, I want you to know you're not alone. I said that at the beginning and I mean it because I've had so many conversations with women law firm owners who are trying to figure this out as they grow. The best course of action to develop a culture of ownership and leadership within your law firm starts with you, of course, it starts with you.
• 17:42
  So if you resonate with what I'm sharing, I invite you to join us in the Wealthy Woman Lawyer League, where we work on everything involved in operating and scaling a profitable, sustainable, wealth generating law firm business. In addition to deep diving into how to attract better clients, leveraging your resources like prioritizing your time, delegating to top talent and documenting your processes and mastering your money and mindset, we also work with you to become the best leader and law firm manager you can be. We also help you learn how to cultivate other leaders. In fact, if you join Wealthy Woman Lawyer before the September 2023, you'll get access to live trainings specifically designed to help you become a better leader and manager of your law firm business. Also, you have been thinking about joining the lead for a while now, but you've been hesitating for whatever reason, I'm going to let you in on a little secret about why now is the best time to join.
• 18:40
  First of all, it's the best time to join because you only got one quarter left in 2023 to achieve your law firm growth goals. And so now is a wonderful time for that push to the end of the year to reach those goals and set yourself up for success come January 2024. But also beginning October 1, we will be increasing the investment to join the league. So if you don't invest before the September, you will never have access to the league for such a nominal investment again. The cost to join the Wealthy Woman Lawyer League is equivalent to one initial retainer for most law firm owners.
• 19:18
  So for that investment, you'll receive six months of weekly coaching with me, an attorney who has started her own successful law firm business right out of law school and helped hundreds of other women law firm owners over the last decade scale their law firms to become profitable, sustainable, wealth generating machines. You also will receive an all access pass to the Billion Dollar Law Firm Growth Framework, the law firm system solution course, where I teach you everything you need to know about setting up systems in your law firm business, all seven of the essential systems that you need to run a profitable, sustainable wealth generating law firm. And my five day hiring challenge to help you implement a hiring system in as little as five days and so much more. I have so many bonuses for you in the league program, not to mention the community with other women law firm owners who are a part of the league and on a similar journey to you. If you are beyond ready to transform your solo or small firm to a wealth generating, freedom creating law firm business, then click on the link in the show notes and join us ASAP.
• 20:24
  I hope you enjoy today's podcast, and I hope to see you in the lead.
• 20:29
  Intro: If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthywomanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.