Session on 6th of March 2025

“Leadership is described as disappointing people at a pace they can handle,” explains Scott Westfahl, Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School, during a recent Platforum9 session. With 12 years of teaching experience at Harvard after practising law and working at McKinsey, Westfahl offers powerful insights into how legal leaders can navigate the unprecedented uncertainty facing the profession today.

Beyond the Great Leader Myth

The traditional model of charismatic leadership—the commanding figure who inspires followers through force of personality—simply doesn’t work in legal environments. “If you’ve ever been in a law firm, you know that does not work with lawyers,” Westfahl notes. “We are cynical, autonomy-seeking, skeptical people who want evidence-based decisions and don’t want to change everything at once.”

Instead, Westfahl advocates for the adaptive leadership framework developed at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government—a model particularly suited to periods of profound uncertainty like our current moment.

Technical vs. Adaptive Challenges

At the heart of this framework is a crucial distinction between two types of challenges:

• Technical challenges: Problems we’ve seen before that can be solved with expertise. “A power line falls into the street and the power company knows which truck and which technicians to send because we’ve seen it before.”
• Adaptive challenges: Problems arising from a changing environment where no single expert has the perfect answer. “The world is changing around us. There’s uncertainty. There isn’t one answer out there that experts can tell us is perfect.”

The legal profession today faces primarily adaptive challenges: generative AI transforming knowledge work, shifting attitudes toward workplace flexibility, mental health crises, and generational differences in values. These issues can’t be solved with a simple policy change or consultant report.

Understanding the System First

“Ninety percent of the effort in an adaptive challenge is figuring out who all the stakeholders are,” Westfahl explains. “What are they holding on to? What are they afraid of losing? What deeply held values or ways of working are we asking them to change?”

Rather than rushing to implement solutions, effective leaders first map the entire system and gather data that “raises the heat” in the organisation—making it impossible to ignore problems that have been avoided. This might involve sharing attrition rates, competitor practices, or client feedback.

The Return-to-Office Example

Westfahl uses the hybrid work debate as a classic adaptive challenge. Rather than arbitrarily mandating three or four days in the office, effective leaders engage stakeholders to understand underlying concerns.

When confronted with a traditional partner who believes lawyers only develop when physically present, Westfahl recommends empathy first: “I’ll sympathise. I remember those days too, but don’t you remember when we came to the office and spent 14 hours working in individual offices with no one talking to us? We have huge attrition because when people have families, they leave firms due to lack of flexibility.”

Finding common ground—like shared commitment to developing excellent lawyers—creates space for adaptive solutions that meet multiple stakeholders’ needs.

Small Solutions and Co-creation

The adaptive approach avoids grand solutions in favour of piloting and experimentation. “I literally say, ‘We don’t have the answer. We are piloting this. We will continue to get feedback. This is our first iteration. We look forward to trying this out. Please get on board, and we’re going to continue to learn and grow.'”

This stands in stark contrast to legal training, which emphasises having the answer quickly and outadvocating others rather than listening and empathising. But as Westfahl notes, “To lead with a technical answer in an adaptive challenge is just not going to be effective.”

Leadership Without Authority

One of the framework’s most valuable insights for law firms is distinguishing between leadership and authority. “Leadership is an activity, not a role or title. You can exercise leadership from any level.”

Associates and administrative leaders can drive change by building informal authority through reputation, collaboration, and relationship development. “If you’re a really good M&A associate at fifth or sixth level in New York right now, the firm’s terrified you’ll leave. You have a lot of informal authority because you’ve delivered.”

The Client Perspective

When addressing adaptive challenges like lawyer wellbeing, including client perspectives is essential yet often overlooked. Many partners claim relentless schedules are client-driven, but Westfahl’s research suggests otherwise.

“The clients we had in the room said, ‘Sometimes we demand it, but a lot of times we don’t.’ There’s anxiety at the firm that drives schedules and fire drills more than client demand.”

He cites U.S. Bank’s collaborative effort with outside counsel to create guidelines stating: “We expect the law firms we hire to protect and promote the mental health and wellbeing of the people they assign to our matters.” The client took responsibility by clarifying when weekend work was truly necessary.

The Feedback Challenge

Westfahl partly blames legal education for lawyers’ resistance to feedback. “In the US, when you go to law school, you get no feedback for development your first year. You get one exam at the end that rates and ranks you for employers, but it’s not feedback for learning and growth.”

This educational model creates professionals uncomfortable with the ongoing feedback essential to addressing adaptive challenges—a weakness firms must overcome to thrive in uncertain times.

As law firms navigate multiple transformative forces—from AI to generational shifts—those embracing the adaptive leadership model will be best positioned to evolve successfully. The approach may be slower and more deliberative than technical solutions, but as Westfahl concludes, “Slow, iterative change is important. In a partnership, the sense that partners are owners of the business matters.”