So You’re the Leader… Will They Follow?

If you thought the honeymoon phase was short for a new president, it is even shorter for a new manager.

Being an attorney instantly instills a sense of trust and faith in your new team members, but they quickly need to see more than your credentials before they will agree to blindly follow. While true leadership will be proven by your work over a period of months or years, I have learned a few lessons along the way that will hopefully help your honeymoon last longer than the average decision from the Ninth Circuit.

Flex Your JD

If you’re like me, you were placed in a management position in large part thanks to your education, with your ability to manage being a secondary concern. As I had no previous management experience, not even a summer at my local Bennigan’s, proving to my team that my education qualified me for the position was essential. As I discovered, this can be accomplished in even the smallest of ways.

Within days of joining my team, several of my team members lamented they could never get past the paralegal at a particular attorney’s office. For weeks they had tried, only to be told the attorney was “with a client,” “in court,” or “in a deposition.”  Recognizing this was the attorney code for “get lost,” I called the office and was immediately connected with the attorney and was quickly able to resolve the team’s issue. Thank you professional courtesy.

Although the team had some choice words for the disparate way in which we were treated, it immediately demonstrated what my credentials were able to bring the team.

Don’t Compete with your Team, You’ll Lose

As an attorney, it is hard to write that let alone ask others to follow it. From the first cold-call in Torts, we were expected to be better than our peers and to blaze a path of destruction in a quest for the top of our class. Once in the real world, our jobs literally ask us to defeat others in our profession, be it in the courtroom or on the track to partner.

I get it, but hear me out.

Being in-house, there are a multitude of things my team is tasked with doing each day that I have never done. From properly coding a medical procedure to submitting a claim to an insurance company, my team regularly uses no less than six computer systems, of which I am proficient in exactly zero.

Why?

First, it’s not necessary for me to successfully do my job. Sure it could be beneficial to understand the intricacies of what they do, but it is not necessary for me to successfully manage their role. Second, I recognize that if I tried, I would never be as good as they are, as some have a twenty-year head start.

I am not recommending you pick up your ball and go home when you are losing; rather, evaluate those roles your team performs that you actually need to learn and those that are better off untouched. Once you start to compete in unnecessary areas, your team will begin to judge your skills versus theirs and question your competence and leadership if you fall short of what they are able to do.

Get an Early Win

Although it may seem obvious, getting a quick win can go a long way toward establishing a good rapport with your team. Even if their previous manager was Tim Cook, odds are they will have some suggestions for improvement or unmet needs with which you can assist. Listen to them and act on what you can.

I recently met with a nurse who had just been added to my team. She works in one of our rural hospital facilities located a little over an hour from our corporate office. Without giving it much thought, I scheduled the earliest time I could meet with her and made the drive to hospital where she was located. Despite the fact she mentioned I was young enough to be her son… at the end of our relatively routine meet-and-greet, she stood up, smiled, and genuinely thanked me for coming. She explained neither of her previous managers had ever made the trip to meet with her at her location and had always asked her to make the drive to visit them.

Even though it was the simplest of gestures, my decision to travel to her earned me an early win and made me a trusted team member.

Regardless of how long the honeymoon lasts, it will end, but gaining your team’s respect early on will yield dividends down the road. During your first real trial as a leader, your team will be behind you rather than looking for you to stumble. And no matter how smart or competent you may think you are, being an in-house manager, having your team there to support you in times of peril is essential to your success.

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Stephen Williams is in-house counsel with a multi-facility hospital network in the Midwest. His column focuses on a little talked about area of the in-house life, management. You can reach Stephen at [email protected].