By Legal Futures Associate Osprey Approach [1]
Having spent over three decades in various fee earner and managerial roles, Ian Hopkins, owner of Hopkins Management Consultancy and senior consultant at CPM21, shares his vast experience on what ingredients make an effective leader and how law firms can future proof their business through effective leadership building.
Ian shares his insights with Amy Bruce, marketing director at Osprey Approach [2], for episode two [3] of Osprey’s Empowering Law Firm Leaders podcast [4].
During the conversation, Ian and Amy discuss: –
- The importance of business-thinking
- Current legal leadership challenges – and how to overcome them
- How to improve employee engagement
- What makes a good leader
Top three lessons learnt for running a successful law firm
- You must have a clear vision and strategy – “There has to be clarity in the vision and you must have goals and objectives in place. Once you have those in place, you need to check in regularly to make sure that progress is on track and to see if any adjustments need to be made.”
- Instil a positive culture – “The SRA are right to be dealing with toxic cultures in the legal profession. Changing the culture of a business can’t be done overnight but there are four elements to creating a positive culture:
– you first need to identify (and then follow) the values of your firm;
– leaders need to be authentic and optimistic;
– effectively communicate and share as much information as you can;
– value all staff equally irrespective of their role.”
- Deal with issues as they occur – “It’s crucial not to sweep things under the carpet. You need to have excellent feedback mechanisms to get early warning signs before things blow up. Once you’re aware of what is causing frustrations you have to act on it and fix it, no matter how difficult that may be.”
How to overcome the current challenges facing law firm leaders
“There is no shortage of challenges for law firms right now. Whilst some challenges may be size or sector specific, there are challenges which are common to all firms irrespective of size.”
Ian outlines four of the key challenges that SME leaders currently face, namely, the cost of regulation, including having to spend more time dealing with regulatory issues; securing professional indemnity insurance (PII), where the ability to show good risk management is crucial; recruiting and retaining staff and how building the right culture can help; and, how firms can compete successfully in a competitive legal market.
You can read Ian’s insights in full here [3].
The barriers to employee engagement
Employee engagement is crucial to avoid the biggest and most costly challenge facing law firm leaders right now – recruitment. “Companies with engaged employees outperform their peers by 147% [5], so engagement really does impact productivity, profitability, and business success.”
Ian explains that it’s not necessarily initiatives or schemes that improve employee engagement. Whilst they may initially improve satisfaction, it’s the process of work that defines how people feel about their job, including the tech and tools employees have to perform their jobs effectively, and having a clear career progression path.
What makes an effective leadership team
Ian believes that law firms, “need to look to create leaders at all levels of the business. Don’t just think ‘leader’ in terms of the person at the top of the business. You really need to create leaders at all levels because that’s where you get the drive from to move the business forward.”
To be a good leader it’s important to not only have a clear vision and plan, but to be able to communicate it effectively to partners and the wider team. He also believes that leadership should be “self-managed, accountable, and responsible for performance and results.”
A high-performing law firm starts with an effective leadership team
To get the best from your employees you need a strong leadership team to drive the business collectively towards the goal.
An effective leader must be an authentic role model, who lives the values of the firm and can successfully communicate their vision.
But an effective leader is only as effective as their team, which is why you need empowered leaders at all levels of the business. Ian emphasises the importance of having a clear vision and strategy at management level, so everyone is clear what they’re working towards, what success looks like, and how they contribute. This is the foundation for a high-performing, successful law firm.
Watch the full interview with Ian Hopkins now [3] to discover more advice and guidance on building an effective leadership team. You’ll also hear Ian’s exclusive advice to all future law firm leaders on how to motivate a team and the importance of planning to avoid unwanted surprises.