News: Performance Management
Leadership skills training: Strong management imperative to City law firms
12 September 2008
Successful management training and leadership skills development can make or break a City law firm, new research suggests.
The Legal Week/Big Question survey probed 153 partners and found the majority in agreement about the importance of strong senior leaders who demonstrate effective leadership.
No respondents considered management insignificant to the success of sizeable commercial law firms, while 96 per cent rated strong leadership as 'important' or 'very important'.
Furthermore, 55 per cent revealed that partners attribute 'considerably more' value to leadership now than they did five years ago.
Global firm Linklaters was held up as one example of a company that has flourished under strong management teams.
"There are more and more opportunities open to firms now - sometimes more than they can handle," Ian Bagshaw, private equity partner at the organisation, remarked to Legal Week.
He continued: "The quality of the managing partner is to maximise the potential of those opportunities - it is this strategic leadership that firms require."
In related news, a source from the National Black Police Association has told the Guardian that a new discrimination claim being lodged against the Metropolitan police is the result of "failed leadership" which allowed racism to go unchecked.
