#25 – Role Models From Pop Culture?
Part 3: What Can We Learn From The Characters We Love - & Hate?
I’ve been feeling the holiday vibe.
It’s nearly August. Everyone seems to be on holiday, just to have been on holiday, wishing they were on holiday, about to go on holiday.
So I’ve decided that Practical Counsel should have a bit of a summer go-slow, just until the start of September, when we’ll all come back revived (or hungover), ready in the UK for a new Prime Minister (tantalising prospect), energy price hikes and stagflation.
Am I painting a gloomy picture? It certainly feels like there’s a dearth of grown-up leadership at the top political level.
This week the Down Low GC makes a reappearance, drawing on his beloved Shakespeare - what else – and arguing that we can learn a lot about leadership from the Bard.
And a contribution from Natalie Smith, Legal Counsel at Starlizard. Her pick is slightly less high-brow, but will delight those who queued up to see Tom Cruise’s return to the silver screen as Maverick, in the recent reboot of the Top Gun franchise.
Practical Counsel won’t go to sleep in August, but I’ll aim to put out one final issue on the Pop Culture series mid-August and resume business as usual at the beginning of September.
For those of you going off on your well-deserved hols, have a great time. There may be long queues at the airports but it will be worth it once you’re sipping a Sangria in Seville, or porking out on a pizza in Piacenza.
Try to detach from your mobile devices (as if), give yourself a deserved digital detox and remember that you’ve earned a long overdue break, so make the most of it.
Enjoy reading, and please comment and contribute to the debate by posting direct on Practical Counsel. Also, please write in with your unique people issues to me (practicalcounsel@substack.com) - I unequivocally undertake never to reveal your identity and will change key details of your situation so as to preserve your confidentiality and anonymity (unless you don’t want this). I also undertake to write to you personally with my own thoughts and comments on your situation and am always happy to follow up with a call on Zoom or similar.
Leadership Lessons for the Ages from the Bard
The Down Low GC (DGC) explains why, in his view, no-one tells it quite like Shakespeare
This week’s Lead Contributor is an anonymous Senior In-house Lawyer, the Down Low GC (DGC), who has become a regular contributor to Practical Counsel.
Dear Jonathan
I’d like to say I’m surprised at the current level of contribution so far to this series on learnings from about leadership from popular culture.
But I’m not.
Sadly, the ranks of in-house leadership seem increasingly to be populated by those who wouldn’t know a Titus Andonicus from a Coriolanus.
Gone are the days, lamentably, when our leading lawyers received a first class classical education.
My own view is that one need look no further than the Bard for a compendious collection of lessons in leadership. The Folio is replete with a stock of leaders, good, bad and indifferent. I often go back to Shakespeare when looking for the inspiration required to motivate my own motley crew, my own Band of Brothers (and Sisters).
Most of Shakespeare’s leaders, to be fair, are flawed. Some seriously so. Those leaders are object lessons, in my view, in how not to lead.
I, in particular, watch out for the Iago, who whispers honeyed words while preparing to stab one in the back. I’ve had a couple of lieutenants in my rich and varied career who turned out to be snakes in the grass.
Shakespeare’s characterisation of Iago is timeless. How many of us have encountered the ambitious junior who seems utterly trustworthy, but turns out to have his or her own agenda? Watch out for the seeming ally who seems eager to help, but who is ruthlessly pursuing a self-centred agenda.
Not that Othello is entirely blameless for his downfall, of course. Shakespeare aptly captures the extent to which we can each be manipulated, the extent to which our self-doubts can be played upon by those who know how to do this.
The Prince of Denmark exemplifies another flaw that I’ve oft observed in senior in-house lawyers: procrastination. Rather than seize the day, it is more comfortable to push off the difficult decision.
I try to be bold in my advice, to push aside those niggling doubts that plague us all. I’ve learnt that the business is usually looking for bold answers from their top lawyers – and an attitude to risk that is robust, and not oversensitised.
In Julius Caesar we see a leader who is brought down by his own hubris. But the play is also a masterful study in the dynamics of the conspiracy. We see how even the most loyal friend can wield the knife. ‘Et tu Brute?’
En garde, dear Reader, en garde.
Beware the friend who turns out to be anything but.
I could write all day about other leaders in Shakespeare. Most of them, of course, are deeply flawed (Richard III, Titus Andronicus, King Lear … the list goes on).
As a proud Brit I prefer to conclude with that most heroic of Shakespearean leaders, Prince Hal (Henry V).
My calling is perhaps more prosaic than Prince Hal’s – and certainly less bloody – but his ability to galvanise his followers is something that we can all learn from. In his most famous speeches Prince Hal tells a story, paints a picture for his troops:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Doubtless the editor of Practical Counsel will get a few emails of complaint from the politically correct, but nothing stirs me quite like Shakespeare:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more …
…………………………………… The game’s afoot:
Follow you spirit, and upon this charge
Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George!’
God Bless, indeed, and enjoy the rest of your summer,
The DGC
Maverick – Tom Cruise Returns
Insights from a legal leader, Natalie (Nurock) Smith
Natalie Smith is Director and Legal Counsel at Starlizard Consulting Ltd. Natalie trained as a Solicitor at Paisner in London, before specialising in share schemes, with stints at Andersen and Deloitte. She has been a senior in-house lawyer for over 10 years. As her leadership role model she nominates Maverick, the pilot ace brought to life by Tom Cruise in the hugely successful Top Gun franchise.
“Maverick, it's not your flying, it's your attitude”.
Yes, Maverick has an attitude problem but there is room in the world for leaders who are proud to be known as ‘unorthodox’ and /or ‘independent-minded’.
While Maverick in the original 1986 film was a risk taker and a rule breaker, the Maverick we meet in the recent sequel is older (although Tom Cruise’s ageing process seems to be considerably slower than for the process in those of us who are almost his contemporaries) and has been brought back in somewhat murky circumstances to teach his skills to a new generation.
Some things have not changed.
Like many top leaders, Maverick continues to challenge the status quo. He has been tasked with a fiendish operation but his ability to think outside the box and do it his own way means he is ideally suited to this role even though it brings him into repeated conflict with his bosses.
Maverick leads by example. There is no doubt that he is a highly skilled pilot who is also resolutely loyal to his team. Just as the mission is about to depart, word comes that the team must be cut down in numbers. Of course, Maverick is part of the final team – where else would he be at the crucial time? But more to the point, who else would his team want to be leading them?
Maverick builds an effective team. Rather than spending time in the classroom, the team bond on the beach. The team needs to act as one, without room for selfishness or personality clashes, so Maverick is attuned to sensitivities and potential flashpoints (his own relationship with one of the team being complicated). But he only wants the best people in his team and he is not afraid to take difficult decisions to achieve this.
A leader can also be a teacher. While Maverick may not have seen himself as a teacher and considered it a demotion, he ultimately earns the respect of his team and his bosses because he leads by example.
Maverick may have issues with authority, but he genuinely cares about his team and will not rest until he has done the job he was given, whatever the cost to himself.
Key Takeaways
1. This issue is the third in a series of issues combining light-hearted fun with some serious learning. As I’ve said in each of the last two issues, nothing too heavy – it’s summertime for lawyers in the Northern Hemisphere and many are on their summer holidays.
2. In each of these issues of Practical Counsel, senior in-house lawyers and /or industry experts are nominating / presenting their favourite characters from fiction who speak to them with regard to leadership, management and relational issues.
3. In this issue the Down Low GC speaks to his love of Shakespeare, and learnings for leadership from several of Shakespeare’s characters.
4. He talks in particular about the need to beware the supposedly loyal lieutenant (the ‘Iago’ or ‘Brutus’), who is actually preparing to bring you down. He also references Hamlet, urging senior in house lawyers to seize the day, and to give bold advice.
5. Finally he talks about the inspiration he draws from Prince Hal (Henry V) and his ability to tell a story and to galvanise his followers.
6. Natalie Smith, another senior in-house lawyer, nominates Maverick (played by Tom Cruise in Top Gun), referencing his ability to lead by example, to build an effective team and to teach.
7. Next issue will probably be the final issue in this series where senior in-house lawyers / industry experts nominate fictional characters from popular culture, and explain what leadership or other managerial / relationship lessons they have learnt from the characters they nominate. To make your own contribution and to nominate a character, please email practicalcounsel@substack.com
And now …….
Contribute to the debate and write in with your comments and observations. Also write to Jonathan with any other people issues you face as an in-house lawyer.
Jonathan can be reached by email at practicalcounsel@substack.com
A note for you picky lawyers; and a plea for tolerance
I am a British lawyer by background and went to both school and University in the UK. So my English is British English. I have taken a conscious decision to write this newsletter in British English, but to try to avoid phrases that aren’t common outside the UK. Sometimes, though, I’ll use a phrase that isn’t commonly used outside the UK, without realising that it is a Britishism. I also endeavour to use the vernacular spellings of my contributors (e.g. to use US spellings for a US contributor), but won’t always get this right.
My plea is for you to tolerate the British spellings and grammar and the occasional Britishism. And to focus on the substance of the newsletter rather than the occasional (to you) annoying turn of phrase, bit of grammar or unorthodox spelling, or the occasional inconsistency in spelling as between, for example, UK and US ‘standard’ spellings.
Thank you and best wishes,
Jonathan Middleburgh