In Hamlet, Polonius prepares his son, Laertes for travel with the following advice – “This above all: To thine own self be true.” Unless leaders can first be true to themselves, they cannot be true to others.  Great leaders follow Polonius’ advice, although it is no easy task.  To be true to yourself, means to know yourself.  To know yourself you must be self-aware.  Self-awareness means understanding ourselves – and understanding how we are perceived by others.  

Why is self-awareness important?  Because without self-awareness we can get caught up in behaviors that are inconsistent with our own values and beliefs.  Without self-awareness, we may not have the courage to say “no” to the unimportant things in life so that we can focus on the truly important.  Without self-awareness, leaders may fear appearing vulnerable.  Without self-awareness, leaders can’t understand how their characteristics and behaviors are impacting other people.  Self-awareness is the ability to understand ourselves and our characteristics, and utilize our characteristics in ways that serve us best. 

In her book, Lawyer, Know Thyself, Susan Daicoff explains that some of the very characteristics that make lawyers successful in the courtroom can lead to problems in a more collaborative environment.

"For example, being a predominantly rational, objective, competitive and argumentative sort of person may allow one to function well as an advocate during the workday, but be quite destructive to one’s interpersonal relationships.  It may bleed over into being hostile, argumentative, and aggressive in all situations, which could hamper one’s ability to relate well with others, and thus impair one’s ability to garner social and collegial support."

In other words, when you’re leading your next staff meeting, remember, it’s not an adversarial contest.  If you lack self-awareness, you may not realize that the characteristics that serve you well in the courtroom, may not serve you well at all in your work as the leader of your firm – or your family. 

Ironically, you may notice certain characteristics in your colleagues, yet not be aware of them in yourself. All too often, behavior we dislike in others is the very behavior we sometimes exhibit.  And while we may refuse to recognize our own problem behaviors, they may be very obvious to those around us.

"If we can stop, listen, and think about what others are seeing in us, we have a great opportunity.  We can compare the self that we want to be with the self that we are presenting to the world.  We can then begin to make real changes that are needed to close the gap between our stated values and our actual behavior."

From What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith

The answer to that question is an unsettling, “Yes.”  A recent study conducted by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) found that increased financial pressures during the economic crisis have led to an overall increase in fraud.  The survey also found that “employees pose the greatest fraud thread in the current economy.”  And law firms are especially vulnerable.  An article in the June 8 issue of the National Law Journal reported that “law firms make easy pickings for embezzlers,” and embezzlement in law firms happens most frequently in solo and small firm practices.  Why?

Michael Downey, a partner in the St. Louis office of Chicago-based Hinshaw & Culbertson, whose practice focuses on legal ethics and professional services risk management told the National Law Journalthat “attorneys tend to delegate business matters to employees and provide too little oversight.” Does that sound familiar?  Moreover, according to Downey, “In small firms, one person often handles accounts payable and receivable. It's someone whom they rely on for almost everything," Downey said. Lawyers are more interested in practicing law and too seldom trained to run businesses, he said; they're eager to hand over financial responsibilities to staff.

According to ACFE President James D. Ratley, "Loyal employees have bills to pay and families to feed. In a good economy, they would never think of committing fraud against their employers. But especially now, organizations must be vigilant during these turbulent times by ensuring proper fraud prevention procedures are in place." 

Does your firm need a fraud prevention checkup?  Click here for free fraud prevention tools from the ACFE.

One sure fire way to be more persuasive is to engage in not-so-random acts of reciprocity.  Reciprocity is the theory that one good turn deserves another.  In Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, by Robert Cialdini, with co-authors Noah J. Goldstein and Steve J. Martin, the law of reciprocity is defined as “the social glue that helps bring people together in cooperative relationships.” 

So how do you activate the law of reciprocity?  One simple way is to ask for favors.  By asking for favors, you’re giving people the opportunity to help you.  Having the ability to genuinely help someone makes us feel good.   So look for opportunities to ask for favors.  Be sincere and straightforward.  In D.A. Benton’s book, Executive Charisma, she suggests the following approach: “Would you do me a favor? . . . I’d be grateful,” and later, “Thank you.”

The key is sincerity.  If you are insincere or manipulative, people will know it.  For more on reciprocity, click here to visit the Harvard Business Blog.

Before I went to law school, I was a professional musician.  I played the guitar and sang.  Still do – sometimes.  Music has always been a really big part of my life.  In fact, my first TV memory was when the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show. (I was only four years old, and after the show my dad bought me the “Meet the Beatles!” album.  I still have it.)  I think of just about everything in terms of music.  So when I think of a law firm, I think about it in terms of a band and all the “players” in the band.  So how’s your band?  Are you totally awesome or would Simon Cowell shame you off the stage of American Idol?  I hope you’re thinking, “We are totally awesome! We ROCK!”

But if you’re thinking, “Geez, we’d be laughed off the stage,” it’s time to do something about it.  Here’s what you can do to get started moving from laughing stock karaoke wannabes to rock stars.

First: Start paying attention to your players.  Do you have the right people in your band?  I can’t stress how important this is!  Think of the Beach Boys backing up Mick Jagger or anybody other than The Boss fronting the E Street Band.

Second: As the leader of your band, you get to write the songs and pick the playlist.  You decide who plays a solo, and when.  You even get to demand only green m&m’s in your dressing room. You get the picture.  You’re the leader.  You set the stage for success. You’re The Boss . . . literally.

Third: Practice, practice practice.  No matter how good the players, the band will never be awesome without lots and lots and lots of practice.  That means you, too, Boss. So, meet with your band every day.  Make sure everybody knows their part. Make sure the bass player is in step with the drummer and everybody is playing the same song at the same time.

Start doing these three things on a really consistent basis.  Then give your band a “shout out,” or raise your lighter (or your cell phone, depending upon your generation) in the air because you’re on your way to stardom.

Of course, like any great band, the practicing never stops.  But taking these first three steps will get you moving in the right direction.  Rock on.

When you envision yourself and your law practice, what do you see?  Your answer to this question will have a dramatic impact on how well you fare during these scary times.  Are you creating your firm or are you just re-creating what thousands of lawyers before you have done?  If you’ve never thought about these things, now is the time.  You can hum the same tired tune or you can orchestrate your future.  Now is the time, and the choice is yours.  You can do this.

The lawyers who will thrive in the coming years are those who have created their own vision of what their law firm can be.  And who then get busy making that vision a reality.  Those that thrive will bring a true spirit of entrepreneurship to their firms.  They’ll wake up every morning with one burning question: “How can we serve our clients better?” 

So get busy.  Start by asking yourself and your team the question: “How can we serve our clients better?”  Make a list.  Get going.  Start renewing.  Start reinventing.  Take it one step at a time.  You will get there. 

Don’t be overwhelmed by the work that you discover must be done.  One step at a time.  Symphonies aren’t written overnight.  They are written note by note, line by line, measure by measure.  Your life and law practice can be that symphony or samba or rock 'n roll anthem.  Just start.  Now.

That’s what they call a rhetorical question – according to Webster’s “a question to which only one answer may be made.”  And I know the answer to this question is a resounding, YES!  Every lawyer I talk to is driven to distraction by email.  - Too many, not enough time to deal with them, an overflowing inbox.  One tip: Your inbox is not your to do list.  It’s not the place to leave emails thinking, “I’ll get to that later.”  If you treat your inbox like your to do list, you’ll soon have hundreds (dare I say thousands?) of emails staring at you each morning just screaming for your attention.

Instead, create folders that work for you.  Create folders for each client, with sub-folders for specific matters or projects.  You may also want to create folders for administrative tasks, volunteer or bar association work, and other projects. And for each email in your inbox decide whether to: 1) Do it – Answer it, if you can “do it” in two minutes or less. 2) Defer it – If it is something that requires more thought or research, file it in an appropriate folder for follow-up. 3) Delegate it – If it is something someone else can handle for you, then delegate it. 4) Delete it! 
 
Block time to work through your inbox applying these rules. I like to refer to this block & tackle time as "trashing my inbox" because that's where so many emails land. Then set a magic number for yourself: “No more than 15 (or some other relatively low number) emails in my inbox.”  Of course, sometimes (most days) you’ll exceed this.  But make it your goal to get back to 15 as soon as you can, and don’t let email creep take over your inbox.  Block at least one hour each week to trash your inbox.  Make it a game, and reward yourself with something fun when you back to your magic number.