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While many law firm leaders feel pressured to project constant confidence and appear as though they have all the answers, one leadership coach warns that the profession’s “fake it till you make it” culture is quietly pushing firm leaders to the breaking point.
Speaking on a recent episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show, Katie Minogue, a former principal at Maurice Blackburn turned leadership coach, has exposed what she describes as one of the most pervasive and dangerous traps preventing law firm leaders from stepping into stronger, more effective leadership.
With the intense pressures embedded in legal practice, Minogue said the nature of the work is quietly reshaping what leadership now demands – making strong, capable leadership more critical than ever.
“In the legal industry, there is a lot of pressure in the nature of the work that we do, the obligations that we have to the court, to the clients that we serve,” she said.
“I think that brings a particular type of pressure that can impact leadership and certainly makes being a great leader really important.”
Reflecting on her own journey through the ranks, Minogue pointed to a leadership culture that rewards emerging lawyers for saying yes to everything, working long hours, and steadily absorbing escalating pressure.
“A lot of people sort of begin and progress through leadership within law firms, you start out by sort of saying yes to everything and doing long hours, absorbing a lot of pressure,” she said.
At the same time, she reflected on the unspoken expectation for leaders to push through without showing any vulnerability or weakness – all while carrying a quiet, lingering fear of being exposed as not actually knowing enough to lead.
“There’s not showing weakness or just really trying to push through. Sometimes in the back of your mind, I certainly did have this fear as I progressed into leadership roles, of being found out that someone was going to work out that I didn’t really know what I was doing,” she said.
Rather than developing authentic leadership capabilities, Minogue explained how this reality led her to slip into a mindset of simply performing what she thought a leader was supposed to look like.
“What that developed in me was just this really real sense of sort of performing what I thought a leader should be as opposed to actually being a leader and developing my leadership skills,” she said.
“I remember the moment with absolute clarity. It was a Saturday morning. I’d taken on the running of a regional office. It was a big team. I was in a new practice area and had a big caseload.
“I was just sitting there in the office on this Saturday morning with a pile of files in front of me, just thinking, I actually don’t know how to keep doing this.”
However, Minogue said moments like these fundamentally transformed her approach to leadership, shifting her away from the burden of needing to have all the answers and towards a more collaborative, team-driven approach.
“That sense of overwhelm was a turning point for me in leadership. From that moment, I actually stopped trying to think I had to have all the answers,” she said.
“I started doing things like asking my team to come to me with proposed solutions, starting to empower them, giving them some decision making, ownership, and stopping trying to bluff my way through, but just being honest about where I was at and how I needed help and support.”
Through a shift in her leadership style, she said she stopped exhausting herself trying to appear in control and instead began to let go – a change that left her not only calmer and clearer, but ultimately a far more effective leader.
“It was incredible because I’d spent so much time wasting energy pretending I was in control that actually relinquishing some of that control to empower the team and let them step up. I actually became calmer, clearer and a better and more in control leader,” she said.
