February/March 2010 / Features
Change Leaders Will Be the GCs of the Future
The authors use information from their company’s recent survey of 300 chief legal officers to set criteria that distinguish an excellent general counsel from one who is merely adequate. They maintain that their analysis has implications for boards and CEOs that want to develop top GC succession talent, and for individual legal executives who want to improve their performance.
Among the findings: Legal and regulatory knowledge in the company’s area of focus was what distinguished the outstanding general counsel in the past, but today the bottom quartile in their sample scores similarly to outstanding GCs; although CEOs have for some time been seeking more business-savvy GCs, the difference in market knowledge between outstanding and ordinary GCs is marginal; and outstanding GCs have developed their leadership skills to the level of the average CEOs on almost every competency, including team leadership, developing organizational capability and customer impact.
In the future, outstanding GCs will likely strengthen their skills in the two areas where they lag outstanding CEOs: market knowledge, and change leadership. Over the next decade, the so-called “soft skills” — those that address issues of people and the organization — will play a greater part in the general counsel’s role than they have in the past, because organizations are increasingly diverse, international and collaborative.