Ask Me: A Shared Leadership Concept

Inspiration

Our team set out to view the problems of retention and leadership development from the perspective of a staff attorney. Why do they leave? What would make them want to stay? How to we nurture their leadership potential?

It turns out that typical young staff attorney has a lot on her mind: student loans, career development, thoughts of starting a family, etc. The typical young staff attorney found her way to legal services due to a strong sense of social justice and a desire to do good. She wants to stomp out inequality and poverty. She wants to do this work...but she also has to look out for herself.

We want to know where our organizations are headed. We have ideas and would like to be heard. We need to know that what matters to us, matters to the leadership. We want to share in the vision of this organization.

If you want to know how to make this a great place to work, just ask us.

The Shared Leadership Concept

The idea is that staff need to have more participation in leadership in order to have a sense of ownership of the direction of the organization. We propose that staff would participate in committees that would send elected representatives to a quarterly Advisory Committee meeting with the Executive Director. Participation would be completely voluntary. Staff attorneys, supervising attorneys, support staff and administrative staff would meet in their own respective subcommittees to brainstorm and suggest ideas to take the E.D. regarding issues small and large that arise within the organization.

The purpose of the subcommittees is to create a space where staff feel comfortable to sharing ideas and speaking their minds, without supervisors present. Each type of staff member has the opportunity to take on a leadership role as a representative to the Advisory Committee. We suggest at least two representatives from each committee, and a term of at least one year for each representative. The one year term allows for development of leadership skills and ownership. The representative would run the subcommittee meetings, gather input from staff, and facilitate the staff in reaching a consensus of concerns and ideas. The identities of those speaking up at the subcommittee meetings would be kept confidential, so that staff may speak their minds without fear of reprisal or retaliation. The hope is that natural leaders will emerge from the process and from all different levels of the organization.

The Advisory Committee meetings are to be a "two-way street" between the E.D. and the staff. The E.D. informs the staff of leadership issue and concerns in an effort to create transparency within the organization. The staff provides the E.D. with honest feedback and ideas.

Desired outcomes:

Increased transparency Ownership if ideas and difficult decisions Better information for the E.D. for decision making Leadership opportunities for staff Employees share in a vision of the future of the organization.

Cost = $0.00!!!!!

How we did it...

Pure brain power and teamwork...and lots of multi-color post-its!

Challenges I ran into

In testing there were some concerns about whether employees would really feel comfortable being honest and sharing their thought, and would not fear retaliation. We believe we have created a safe environment for brainstorming and speaking honestly, where staff can have some anonymity.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We created a concept that is feasible and could be implemented in any legal services organization within a short period of time...at little to no cost. We tackled some difficult issues, and were honest with each other about our fears and wants. We already had one E.D., and some others in leadership roles, tell us that they would be excited to implement this in their organization!

What I learned

Even though our team members come from different parts of the state, practice different types of law, work in offices small and large, we have a common set of concerns about our futures as legal services attorneys.

What's next for Ask Me: A Shared Leadership Concept

We plan to share this idea with our Executive Directors and we hope to see legal services organizations begin to implement it within the next year.