Skip to main content

Leading a platoon or a practice: How military leadership principles can benefit legal marketers



I began as a skeptic: of book clubs, of self-help books, of a bunch of former Marines applying U.S. military leadership principles to the business world.
But I signed up for the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Southeast Region’s book club anyway, because when you're the mother of an energetic toddler, the only way to find time to read a book is to literally schedule it into your calendar. We discussed one chapter per week. And that’s when I became a believer.
Beyond the perk of connecting with an inspiring group of legal marketers from across the southeastern United States, the book itself was eye-opening. Too many “aha” moments to mention, so here is just my top takeaway from Spark – how to lead yourself and others to greater success. By Angie Morgan, Courtney Lynch, and Sean Lynch.

Understand your values and live them. This exercise is foremost about becoming aware of what you truly value. Values are the principles or qualities that are important to you – like family, freedom, adventure or excellence. They are deeply personal and, importantly, they evolve over time. Why should you identify your values? Because they can serve as an internal compass, guiding you when making important and difficult decisions and preventing you from making choices you’ll regret.
Do this exercise to determine which key values are most important to you.
Note: the activity requires an honest conversation with yourself – for best results find a quiet space and set aside some time to reflect.

Once you start living your values, you'll gain the trust of your teams and your lawyers, and stand out as a leader because your actions are consistent. Aligned with our values, we can cut through the noise and focus on meaningful endeavors. Legal marketers: read this entire book (not just the values chapter) and put it into action. The results will be worth your efforts.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to get listed in Best Lawyers

The deadline for the next edition of Best Lawyers is coming up on April 15, so here's the rundown on this publication. It is entirely based on peer review, which means that the listings are based on votes by lawyers. But only lawyers who are already listed are eligible to vote. So, you'll need to first get on the ballot, and then do some campaigning. Here's how to approach it:  First, you need to get nominated . Nominations are open to anyone, but they ask that lawyers not nominate themselves, so the easiest approach is to have your marketing person nominate you. They can find the link here . Once that's done, you will be on the ballot for voting. One nomination is sufficient. The ballot . I mentioned above that only currently listed lawyers are eligible to vote. But there's a catch: not all lawyers are listed on every ballot, so lawyers can't choose exactly who they vote for. The ballots are designed based on the voter's geographic region and practice a...
3 comments
Read more

Book Review: Accelerating Lawyer Success

What does success look like in law firms? The authors, frustrated with the abundance of anecdotal evidence and lack of empirical evidence to answer this question, set out to solve it with research. Their findings are based on studies including a comprehensive, 75-item survey completed by 343 lawyers at U.S. AmLaw 100 firms.  They examine, among other things, the differences between lawyers who made partner in less than 10 years and those who didn't.   Accelerating Lawyer Success: How to Make Partner, Stay Healthy, and Flourish in a Law Firm. By Lori Berman, Heather Bock, and Juliet Aiken.  The authors have uncovered the recipe for how to make partner in less than 10 years. In short, it involves  hard work and quality work, strategic relationship building, planning, help from mentors, and a mind-set of being the master of your own fate. You gotta build relationships strategically, invest in them, and leverage them. You need goals, to make plans, and to stick t...
6 comments
Read more

Profile raising in South Florida: making the most of the Daily Business Review

Profile raising is an important aspect of your marketing and business development efforts. Demonstrating that you are a thought leader in your practice area - whether by writing articles or being quoted in news articles, can go a long way towards helping you stand out. There are many publications out there of course, but the focus of this post is the Daily Business Review (DBR) in South Florida. Writing an article The DBR is an ALM publication reporting on the legal market in South Florida. An excellent opportunity for lawyers to write an article is through the DBR's Board of Contributors column. Articles should be about 800 words, and can be case-specific, about a specific area of the law, a trend, legislation affecting a particular field, or the business of law. If you have a topic to suggest, even better, as the DBR welcomes new content. You'll also need to include a 1-sentence bio and a high resolution headshot, and will be required to sign the DBR's standard rights ...
1 comment
Read more