Hey ALA! I hope your summer is going great and you’ve found some time to rest, relax and perhaps reflect on the first half of the year and the impact you have made on those you lead and manage in your organization. Management innovator Peter Drucker believed that “knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”
As legal management professionals, we have the greatest impact when we lead and manage effectively, but leadership is not a skill that grows or improves without exercising it by trying new approaches, perhaps failing, learning from those shortcomings and trying again.
That’s where ALA can assist you and add value to your role by helping you further develop your skills, regardless of whether you’re new to the industry or to a role in management or you’re an experienced leader focused on implementing change through innovation. This month’s Legal Management includes a continuing education course on leadership. Read the article, apply the knowledge concepts and then take an exam to receive credit toward a number of professional designations, including CLM, CLE, SHRM and HCI. If continuing education credit isn’t your motivation, the article alone can enhance your leadership toolkit.
Our cover story focuses on the trend of organizations moving toward a data-driven approach when it comes to everything from time allotments and budgeting to business development and analyzing competition. It’s just another example of how firms are aiming to be more innovative when it comes to managing business. This trend follows a broader shift we are seeing with how employees learn and grow their professional skills. For example, there is now a focus on developing our workforce instead of simply training them to do the jobs they were hired for. This approach targets nurturing the growth of people over time instead of training them to follow a standard way of doing things.
Organizations are finding that this approach results in better outcomes, more engaged employees and greater satisfaction with the work they accomplish. This trend follows a broader shift we are seeing with how employees learn and grow their professional skills. For example, there is now a focus on developing our workforce instead of simply training them to do the jobs they were hired for. This approach targets nurturing the growth of people over time instead of training them to follow a standard way of doing things. Training creates compliance to a set of standards and can increase production, which in some industries is the measure of success.
Because our focus is on empowering our members to lead and manage the business of law, ALA is the perfect place to learn, develop and try out leadership.