‘Do not come to a problem from dogma or rigid ideology.’
Tony West, PepsiCo
As part of our Insight report on GC leadership, we asked senior in-house counsel how to lead from the front
Be consistent
‘You’ve got to be conscious that you cast a powerful shadow in the team so you need to be consistent in behaviour, beliefs and core message. You need to paint a clear vision and strategy and ideally create it with the team to get buy in. A good leader stretches the team while trusting it to do its own thing.’
Suzanne Wise, group general counsel and company secretary, Network Rail
Don’t manage, lead
‘Leadership is having the vision to know the right thing for the organisation and the courage, communication skills and influence to take things in the right direction. You can’t focus on strategy if you’re permanently involved in the detail, so it also requires you to step away from the technical side of things. People confuse leadership with management or supervision. It’s not the same thing at all.’
Joanna Day, director of legal services, Santander UK
Leave none behind
‘My job is to serve the team and help it be successful. If I do that then I am successful. You also need to understand how every role matters. Most teams could lose a few lawyers and survive, but if they lost their paralegals and secretaries the machine would grind to a halt. You can’t discuss personal development plans for lawyers without also discussing development plans for the support staff.’
Louise Pentland, general counsel, PayPal
Be real
‘Leadership means having a culture in which people can take ownership of projects on their own initiative and without feeling like they are being pushed to go the extra mile. It is an ongoing process where you have to serve as a role model and show your own vulnerabilities. You have to show where you personally are not where you should be.’
Felix Ehrat, group general counsel, Novartis
Stay flexible
‘Two things are absolutely critical for good leadership: the ability to listen and the ability to build a strong team. These two things get you a long way to being able to lead at very senior levels, both in government and the corporate world. Do not come to a problem from a position of dogma or rigid ideology but be able to take in new information and be responsive for needs of the organisation.’
Tony West, general counsel, PepsiCo
Get creative
‘The traditional view of leadership in law was being the person who could answer any question, but we don’t always have the right answers and the more we turn it over and tease out other perspectives, the more we find great ideas and creative energy that can be unleashed.’
Albert Wang, general counsel Asia-Pacific, 3M
All things
‘To lead an in-house function you need to be a business leader, a risk manager, a champion of new technology, a communicator and builder of corporate ethics. You may move in-house on the basis of your technical expertise, but you end up managing and leading a team, taking responsibility for non-legal business functions, advising on ethics and working with senior management. You’re involved in so much more than just the law that leadership skills are essential.’
Misha Patel, assistant general counsel, KPMG
Culture club
‘Management is the art of making people do stuff; leadership is the art of letting people get stuff done. To accomplish that, having the right culture is more important than formal training. Most lawyers are intelligent and a lot have MBAs, but working within a business is still a non-lawyerly way of thinking. To be an effective leader as GC you need to build a culture that makes them step outside law.’
Daniel Toner, general counsel and group company secretary, Spire Healthcare
Making the switch
‘One of the hardest things about going in-house is making that move from lawyer to manager. As GC I’m not paid to give opinions. I’m there to bring great talent to the department and focus on the strategic direction of the company. It’s a fundamental shift in the way you think of yourself and you go from being a traditional lawyer to being a leader.’
Peter Beshar, executive vice president and general counsel, Marsh & McLennan
For further reading, please see our Insight feature Leadership and the modern GC: a special report.