Huge and unrealistic expectations are placed on leaders, often resulting in disappointment. This in turn can lead to the perception that, as in Yeats’ poem, “the center cannot hold”; trust in leadership is lost and people doubt or cannot even clearly hear the leaders’ messages. Unity falls apart, cooperation diminishes or vanishes. Even where clear strategies are communicated, there may be no agreement or fully effective implementation. Great leaders realize they cannot lead in isolation. They surround themselves with good people who support them and each other and bring different ideas and backgrounds. They have a transformational, or coaching, style and look to keep growing themselves as well as actively seeking new ideas and innovation for their firm. Their unified and dynamic leadership group provides a center that does hold and enables a firm to face the exciting and sometimes daunting challenges of our time.

When we think of leadership today, whether in business or politics, one of our favorite poems, W B Yeats’ The Second Coming comes to mind.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world In today’s uncertain and constantly changing work and social environment, many professional services firms seem to be without direction; they are wallowing in high seas and, to continue the sailing metaphor, the sails cannot catch the fickle wind. People in law are uneasy about the future of their practice, firm, their profession, and even, in many cases, the future of work as done by human beings.

Huge and unrealistic expectations are placed on leaders, often resulting in disappointment. This in turn can lead to the perception that, as in Yeats’poem, “the center cannot hold”; trust in leadership is lost and people doubt or cannot even clearly hear the leaders’ messages. Unity falls apart, cooperation diminishes or vanishes. Even where clear strategies are communicated, there may be no agreement or fully effective implementation.

Leading the Organization of the Future