EVOLVING LAWYERS into LEADERS: 'egotistic experts' to 'integrative Leaders’.. .

Rowan Gillies, Leadership & Organisational Coach-Consultant,

This Articleis based on the latest science & personal research in various fields (including neuro-science, adult developmental & positive psychology, leadership & organisational development, etc), from various salubrious institutions (eg Harvard, Oxford, HEC Paris, MIT, Pennsylvania, Chicago etc)  

 
•(playfully) provokes Lawyers, their egos & ‘pessimistic’ disposition  questions  whether Lawyers, as a class, have yet evolved to be true Leaders  
 
• points-out: - that the potential for self-directed neural & psychological adult development within the lifetime is now a recognised fact  
    • that ‘positivity’ too is a critical component of such development  
    • that such 'development'  is a reference to a  'vertical' development in cognitive-based 'complexity', rather than mere  'horizontal' knowledge-accumulation based learning
    • that university & business-based research shows that such 'complexity' development is what is needed to address the pressing Leadership issues of the day, and that the more 'complex' the Leader the more optimal the Leadership   
    • that a technical expert approach to life & Leadership tends to slot into the lower-mid range of  individual & Leadership development levels    
    • that such vertical Leadership development may nonetheless be consciously cultivated  
    • that such cultivation requires a very different approach to the conventional 'transmission' & knowledge-based approach to horizontal learning & training
• sets-out some basic aspects of such required approach for vertical development, and   
 
• articulates that such development is needed if Lawyers & the Law are to fulfil their potential role in the positive transformation & sustainability of our various human systems

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Management General July 2010 Vol. 3, No. 12, Summer 2010

Rowan Gillies

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Rowan Gillies is an international Leadership & Organisational Coach-Consultant, Mediator & Lawyer, who previously practised law at various international law firms (including Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom) as well as an in-house counsel & regional board director of a leading multi-national.  
 
Rowan now specialises worldwide as an independent leadership & organisational development coach-consultant & trainer-technologist. (lawyerleader@gmail.com).  He has studied extensively in such fields including post-graduate studies at Oxford University's Said Business School & HEC Paris (MSc), at MIT, and now at Harvard.  
 
Rowan is also a facilitator/practitioner in various cutting-edge leadership & organisational development tools & methodologies (from the neuro-scientific to the trans-personal).  Rowan’s life purpose is “evolving corporate consciousness” - developing conscious leaders & organisational systems, by systematically & intuitively nurturing a full-range of physiological, emotional, cognitive, & values resources, to elicit an integrally differentiated & connected balanced system, conducive to intentional functioning at optimal neurocardiological flow states, so as to deliver peak performance for all stakeholders, commensurate with the ever-increasing complexity of the 21st century.

Management General July 2010 Vol. 3, No. 12, Summer 2010