Linklaters is one of the ‘magic circle’ of large global law firms with a head office in the City of London. It specialises in advising the world's leading companies, financial institutions and governments on their most challenging transactions and assignments. Linklaters has 500 partners operating from 30 offices in 22 countries. It is a single global partnership with 6,000 staff worldwide. About half of these staff are based in London – but there is a significant presence in other western European countries, in the developing countries of eastern Europe, in Asia and also a growing practice in the US. The firm covers a broad spectrum of law and is ranked in the top three law firms across a range of disciplines. It has a particularly strong and well-regarded corporate law practice.
The success of professional services organisations is based on strong and trusting relationships with clients. Lawyers are intelligent, successful, autonomous achievers, with overloaded agendas. Practising their profession is what they like to do. It meets their need for involving, challenging and fun work, and brings immediate results and feedback. And, crucially, professional work enhances their credibility and reputation with other professionals.
The producer-manager dilemma
In contrast, leadership is viewed as vague, intangible and invisible. Dealing with people problems is messy, developing strategy distracting. Hence lawyers focus on the professional side and disregard the management and leadership side of their role. The consequences of this are:
- Team members get no feedback about their performance
- Not enough time is devoted to coaching and developing up-and-coming lawyers, which can leave them feeling unloved and dissatisfied (although, because they are also intelligent, successful, autonomous achievers with overloaded agendas, the issue is not as critical as one may expect)
- Peer relationships are not leveraged to generate potential ‘synergistic’ business value
- There is no long-term thinking about the business.
In 2004, 150 Linklaters partners attended a customized development programme at Harvard Business School. Using a mix of custom-designed and published cases based on first-person experience of being in the middle of a real situation, partners were exposed to the ‘producer-manager dilemma’, the challenge of leading other professionals while continuing to produce. One case highlighted the dilemma: a brilliant client server stuck in charge of a department that was currently successful but falling over due to his inattention. “Time – that was really the heart of the matter. Whatever else he should be doing – sorting out the vice presidents’ and associates’ concerns, thinking about the group’s strategy – there weren’t enough hours in the day to do it. He was already working too many 12-14 hour days, to say nothing of weekends. He was driving the business development effort through his personal contacts with present and future clients. He also had to get into the details of his projects because the clients were paying for his talents and advice. Besides, he enjoyed it and was good at it…”
In working the case, the Harvard professors urged the partners to find a balance, not to sacrifice one side of the dilemma to the other. By skilfully drawing out their assumptions – about leadership and career, as well as about some of the solutions they proposed (eg bringing in professionals to manage the office) – the partners were challenged to see producing and leading as an ongoing balancing act over a long period of time, rather than as two irreconcilable polarities.
Reputational leadership
Positional leadership in Linklaters arises from a collegial cocktail of altruism and accord based on reputation: “I want to lead you out of a sense of professional duty; you will let me lead you because you respect my professionalism.” Succession to the partnership is managed through a kind of ‘hive mind’. Individuals are elected on a collective decision. A sponsor writes and presents a case to a panel who will decide on the individual’s suitability to join the partnership. The qualities that are valued at senior levels tend to be those of successful professionals (ie intelligence, client handling, fee income and long hours), rather than leadership characteristics such as strategic thinking and emotional intelligence.
The problem with this self-reinforcing, self-referential system is that a great professional reputation does not necessarily make for good leadership. Not because the potential for good leadership is missing, but because a higher intrinsic value is attached to other qualities. Once promoted, the individual continues to operate as a professional and invariably fails to meet the leadership needs of the business or the people she leads. Her rational approach fills the department with professionally obsessed, independent, results-minded lawyers and assumes that this will be sufficient to create a strong and sustainable business. What is missing is the ‘human aspect’: multi-dimensional attention to the big picture, coaching, mentoring, career development, communication, building commitment, etc.
Linklaters’ approach has not been to make their professionals feel wrong or guilty about their choices or to challenge their competence. They have not belittled the producer at the expense of the manager. Instead they have engaged the partners in an inquiry about the value of both roles: professionals who lead other professionals are leaders and managers and continue to produce results. The Harvard experience worked because the person-centred cases resonated with the partners’ lived experience. The result has been an upsurge in requests for individual coaching as partners seek to bring their leader/manager side into balance. Partners have also been encouraged to develop balanced ‘agendas’ covering short-term (1-3 months), medium-term (4-12 months) and long-term (12-18 months) goals involving specific things they want to achieve in their professional, leadership and personal lives.
Lessons for higher education
Academics are producer-managers. Acknowledge that this is a dilemma to be managed, not a problem to be solved. Do not abandon one role for the other.
Appreciate that developing a professional body is incremental and evolutionary. Respect individual starting points and support them as they start to make changes that follow naturally from their increased awareness.
Consider employing a ‘producer-manager scorecard’ that balances production against leadership-management.
Give academics people-management responsibilities early in their careers.
Develop foundation skills in:
- Activity prioritisation
- Time management
- Strategic thinking
- Relationship management
- Coaching and mentoring
The use of ‘first-person’ custom cases to engage senior academics in facing and addressing their own ‘producer-manager dilemma’.