by Kathleen Bradley

Any leader jumps into the fray with a bundle of attributes, all of which impact her ability to influence others and get things done.  Among the attributes that contribute to one’s leadership ability are:

• her values — what’s important to her?
• her vision — what vision does she have for her firm or practice?
• her interests — where will she naturally focus her attention?
• her strengths and weaknesses – what are her strong points and where does she have the potential to derail, and how does she fill the gaps between the two?
• her personality — for example, is she a ready-aim-fire or ready-fire-aim type of leader?
• perhaps most importantly, her emotional intelligence – does she have emotional self-awareness, the ability to regulate her emotions, relationship awareness, empathy, and social skill?

In the view of most leadership analysts, emotional self-awareness is the single most important quality of effective leaders.  For lawyers, this becomes increasingly important as they progress in their careers, and are required to manage cases and transactions, manage practice groups, and serve in executive positions in their firms.

And, a caveat, contrary to popular believe, charisma has minimal correlation with effective leadership.  Yes, a leader’s charisma can help him to inspire others to do his bidding.  However, unless his charisma is coupled with integrity, talent, caring, and other parts of the leadership puzzle, his leadership may not serve his clients or his firm well and it runs the danger of engendering a cult-like following (think Jim Jones and Charles Manson!).   In fact, the combination of extreme personal humility and intense professional will are better indicators of an effective leader than personal charisma.