How to Lead a Team

During our WP (Wealth Professionals) Club event last week, we had the opportunity to listen to lawyer Felicia de Laat talking about the topic How to Lead a Team.

Felicia is the Head of the Investment Funds team in the Jersey office of Mourant Ozannes, the global offshore law firm, offering legal services in BVI, Cayman, Jersey, Guernsey, Hong Kong and London. 

Leading a team of 25 people – 19 lawyers and 6 staff in support functions such as business development, knowhow management, admin etc, Felicia certainly has plenty of opportunities to practice leadership. “Leading the team is one of the most enjoyable parts of my job” she says.

She shared four approaches that have worked for her:

1. Leading by conversation. Felicia is in fairly constant conversation with all levels of her team, getting their views and ideas, hearing their aspirations and building consensus. This might lead to throwing ideas out altogether when team members come up with better ideas or proposals.

2. Sense of direction. It's important to create a clear sense of direction from the outset and not let that have set by the more dominant members of the team. Felicia works towards creating a sense of aspiration, a sense of being on a journey together where each team member will stretch themselves and try new things. It's important to her to see each of them succeed in their various projects. 

3. Fairness and transparency. Make sure that opportunities and information are equally shared, to the extent possible.  A sense of unfairness can be very corrosive in a team but a sense of being valued, even at different levels and being appropriately 'in the know' can create a real sense of community.

4. Take a long term view on matters  What looks like a catastrophe at this very minute will probably not be remembered in six months’ time and can actually be an opportunity in hiding – to demonstrate character if nothing else. Most issues can be resolved and are actually an opportunity to demonstrate skills and abilities, character and integrity.

Wise words. Thank you Felicia!

Felicia is featured in our Leaders List https://www.leaderslist.co.uk/leaderslist/felicia-de-laat

She has also been shortlisted in our Powerwomen Awards 2020