More Law Firms Launch Leadership Programs

Reporter Gina Passarella of The Legal Intelligencer reports on the law firm of Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young's new Leadership Development Program in her article, Leadership Programs Born From Lack of Born Leaders .   What do you think?  What is the best way to provide leadership training for lawyers?

Comments

[Dr. Larry Richard]

Mark,

The key challenge in conducting leadership training for lawyers is to focus on skill development and behavior change. A leadership training program that only concentrates on teaching ideas will not be successful. Lawyers think that if they know something, then they'll do it, but the evidence suggests the opposite.

A good program should help the participants measurably improve their leadership skills to the point that after the training, more people actually follow them, and thus they are achieving the results they set out to achieve.

Luckily there is a lot of solid research in this field that tells us what works and what doesn't.

Successful programs are long-term, skills-based, interactive, modular, and coaching-intensive. They take into account unique differences in lawyers' personalities. And they are based on a sound competency model rooted in empirical research.

Larry Richard, J.D., Ph.D.
Head of the Leadership & OD Practice
Hildebrandt International

[Local Lawyer]

I think it's important to take in to account that everyone is different when teaching, but you would also hope that a good teacher will know how to teach in different ways.