Practising Leadership

Issue 16 Room to Lead How do you prepare for the next role when the current one takes everything you've got? For lawyers looking to step up, whether that's into partnership or a more senior leadership role, that's the $6million question, especially when someone says this to you: "We need to see you thinking more strategically/acting more commercially/demonstrating stronger leadership/raising your profile with senior decision-makers/bringing in more business before we can consider you for the...

Issue 14 7 overlooked things to build before your next career decision So you have more choice, and a better chance of making the right one when the time comes. You’re not looking. You’re not even thinking about looking. Then a headhunter rings one afternoon with a role that sounds seriously tempting. More scope, more money, a more senior title, an organisation you’d genuinely like to work for. The sort of opportunity where your first thought is, “Blimey, I’d bite their hand off!” Suddenly...

Issue 12 You can be visible and still be a secret Imagine your name comes up in a meeting you’re not in. “Don’t worry, she’ll sort it.” That feels like a compliment, don't you think? You can be trusted to do a really good job. But I disagree. It may also be one of the reasons your career is staying exactly where it is. Professional reputations have a danger of being set in stone. Once people know what you’re good for, they'll remember and keep coming back for it. If you’re the person who can...

Issue 5 When you lose the horizon Years ago my sister and her family lived in Brunei on the island of Borneo. One summer I was visiting on holiday with my parents and we all decided one weekend to go to Labuan, a little archipelago in the South China Sea, 95 sq km, fifteen kilometres from the Brunei mainland. We flew there in one of those tiny de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter propeller planes, the noisy kind where you need headsets and spend the whole journey praying and willing the plane to...