Professional Success Versus Personal Fulfillment – Can They Coexist?
Professional success versus personal fulfillment:
Can they coexist in a boot-camp environment?
Partner A found himself working such long hours that, when he finally made it to one of his son’s baseball games, he didn’t recognize his son when he took the field.
Partner B drove herself so hard that she was able to make partner in half the usual time. Handling five significant cases in two years, she lived on airplanes and in hotels.
During that time, she was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer and could not maintain a relationship for more than three months.
Partner C was by far the smartest and most technically competent person on his team; however, he was continually bypassed when the firm handed out the juicy leadership roles. His performance review mentioned “poor communication skills” and “does not mesh with her team – poor impact.”
The skills required to be successful at a law firm are not the same skills needed for success in other areas of your life. If fact, the behaviors that lead to professional success are often the same behaviors that lead to personal failure.
Humans are complex and interrelated beings. What we do in one area of our life affects what happens in all the other areas. What we do in our work life can have profound consequences, for example, on our home life, our social life, our spiritual life, our recreational life, our health life, our financial life and our community life.
It is especially difficult for lawyers to achieve work/life balance – simply because the “work” segment is so overwhelming. Most law firms proudly boast about their boot-camp mentality – you are expected to be a workaholic, you are expected to work long hours, you are expected to ignore your personal issues – in short, you are supposed to just “suck it up and soldier on” when conflicts arise in your non-work life.
Work/life balance is a huge issue that is largely ignored at most law firms – like the proverbial elephant in the living room. However, it is an issue that desperately needs to be addressed. A professional coach can work with individuals as well as with law firms to give this elephant the attention it deserves.
Much of any law firm’s culture has been established over many years by successive generations of privileged white males. If you are a minority or a woman or a man with different priorities trying to succeed in this environment, you face additional challenges. While it is starting to happen, historically there has been little accommodation for the culture- or gender-based aspects of your nature.
More than half of law-firm associates are now women, and more women than ever are entering the ranks of partner. As partners, they are expected to develop new business – usually in the “warrior way” that is part of traditional firm culture. When they are not successful, they can be marginalized or “promoted” into management.
This common definition of success ignores the fact that women’s personality profiles often differ from those of men. There are as many successful ways to develop business as there are personality types; women should not be expected to fit into the traditional pattern. Professional job coaches can create individual marketing plans that help every individual succeed in a way that meshes comfortably with his or her personality type.
In addition, the traditional law-firm culture is not conducive to having babies and caring for families. There is a dramatic disconnect between the number of women completing law school and the career advancement they enjoy – largely because they are penalized for time spent on family obligations. Interestingly, this has not proven to be as much of an issue for women executives in corporations. In other words, law firms are significantly behind their corporate clients in providing the kind of workplace alternatives that provide balance.
The work/life dichotomy also surfaces when successful lawyers wake up one morning to see the rest of their lives passing them by. For example, their children might be in high school or college, and they realize that they have missed out on most of their formative years. They may want to make a difference by taking a more active role in the community. They may want to focus on developing new interests and hobbies or traveling the world before they are too old.
When this realization hits them in the face, previously successful business developers may consciously or unconsciously decide that they will not take on new business. When this happens, they can “go into hiding” – literally and figuratively. Coaching can help these individuals and their law firms reach a win/win resolution – helping the lawyer achieve work/life balance at this stage of their careers while still satisfying the business development needs of the law firm.
Achieving work/life balance is always important, although its importance fluctuates with demands made by other areas of your life. A good coach can help individual lawyers learn when to say “yes” to workplace demands and – even more importantly – when to say “no”. A good coach can help law firms create a more conducive work/life environment.