Learning leadership

What makes a good leader? I’m given to understand that one or two significant collectives in UK public life are now thrashing this old chestnut out with wild abandon once again. To be fair, it’s a management magazine mainstay – and has probably been debated, in one form or another, since the dawn of time.

There’s credibility, authenticity, an ability to build and keep a consensus among peers (maybe with multiple individual axes to grind), even just good old following through and ‘doing what you said you’ll do’. None of it sounds like rocket science. But leadership can clearly be a rocky ride, hard to distil and bottle in the first place, and with a worrying tendency to run dry at the worst possible moment.

We hear from Weightmans, Boodle Hatfield, Shoosmiths, Withers, Payne Hicks Beach and Bond Dickinson among others.

MASTERS IN THE HOUSE

Leaders may still have a lot to learn. MBA holders reflect on the business of studying on the job. They may no longer be chained to a desk during their day job, but what did these legal business leaders gain from going back to school?

LEAN TEAM

A big IT investment for Shoosmiths has brought fresh focus to an already tightly-formed finance team by bringing in tech and tight teamwork to deliver internal and external value.

MAKING SPACE

Craig Good, global applications manager at Withers, says the firm improved the content management experience for a range of practice needs with a more flexible matter-centric solution from DocAuto