Audacious leaders imbue a mindset that allows a shift in existing patterns of behaviour of staff and clients while breathing life into more productive habits such as follow up and follow through. Audacious leaders are profoundly transparent, truthful, and unafraid to say that they are wrong or that they don’t know the answer.
As Research Professor Brene Brown said “The core of authenticity is the courage to be imperfect, vulnerable and to set boundaries.” It is indeed time to take heed of these wise and simple words before promises are made that create unrealistic demands on staff or where people are intimidated or blamed for making errors.
While good leaders work alongside their people and let them know why they and the work that they do are valuable, audacious leaders involve their people in problem solving and opportunity making without trying to take the credit for everything themselves. In fact, audacious leaders ask others to be insatiably curious, seek alternatives and find new pathways of thinking for solving old problems. It’s not accommodating a new generation of young lawyers, it’s opening the doors to a new way of thinking.
The intent of audacious leadership is not fanciful, but purposeful. Audacious leaders are open to getting the best results through honest collaboration and compromise. To do this, they exercise humility to allow communal success and network growth.
True, not easy when personalities and egos compete. True, not easy when the pressures are on and the clock is ticking and true when autocratic or long-standing leaders have run things for years in the same way and have been successful. But this is what we now know for sure. Whatever got those firms to be successful in the past will not guarantee them to be successful in the future.
Audacious leadership is not a passive experience. Those days are over.
How does AI impact on audacious leadership? As lawyers face the new and already existing threat of technology out-performing them in many tasks, it seems that the gateway to keeping clients and staff will depend on them stepping up as energetic and intuitive audacious leaders. They will have to demonstrate they are seizing every chance to develop themselves and their teams in ways that provide exceptional experiences rather than complex explanations. They will have to move at a fast pace and improve their mentoring and networking — things that AI can not yet provide. Note the word “yet”.
It makes perfect sense to predict that we may well be headed fast and furiously toward an AI revolution in the same way we had an IT revolution.
How does audacious leadership affect your firm’s brand?
In preparation for the imminent changes in all professions, it is not surprising that many successful Australian companies are spending millions of dollars and hours every year in leveraging their profile and brand. Law firms too will need to immediately step up their marketing and branding efforts in a more visible and audacious manner if they wish to demonstrate they are breakthrough thinkers and initiators.
Clients and prospects are looking for their professional services providers, legal or otherwise, not only to have the sharpest professional skillset, but also be the sharpest in intuitively responding to current trends, preparing them for the future and keeping them ahead of the game.
Audacious leaders must work through current criticism, old ways of doing things, complacency and internal or external influences and come out wiser, more compassionate and more connected to local and global networks. This must be demonstrated through harnessing the collective energy and knowledge of other leaders in all areas of business and being more prepared to share and document their knowledge.
In summary having conviction and the courage to take a stand, while demonstrating compassion along the way is Audacious Leadership. Of course, there are those who may be happy with settling as a good leader and that’s ultimately up to them, but they may miss the fact that being audacious is what makes good leaders great.
