Are your partners ego-depleted?

The idea that successful law firm partners might be what psychologists call ‘ego depleted’ may seem somewhat strange. Many of them have quite substantial egos which, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing so long as it doesn’t veer into clinical narcissism.

But ego depletion has its dark side which, under certain circumstances can make people unpleasant to work or live with. Not long ago, I was talking to the head of a business services unit of a large multinational law firm. He was venting his frustration, as well as considerable anger, against a number of partners in the firm’s London office. They had been treating his people with considerable rudeness and their behaviour was bullying at times. These partners were treated by the firm as untouchables because they were successful rainmakers bringing in large sums of money. Younger partners, senior associates and others often saw these people as role models to be emulated. Their bad behaviour was constantly excused – sadly, even by senior management.

PROPOSITIONED

In May last year, the International Bar Association (IBA) – of which I’m a member – produced a detailed report into bullying and sexual harassment in the legal profession throughout the world. In the UK, the bullying rates were higher than the international average. Most bullying goes unreported, as do up to 75 per cent of all cases of sexual harassment. British law firms have a real problem in this area, as other UK-specific reports in 2018 and 2019 also show. A while ago, a senior partner at Herbert Smith Freehills (alas now deceased) said that successful partners tended to put on what he called their “asshole cloak”. They seemed to think they had the right to treat their fellow workers badly, as long as they treated their clients well. As part of a report into mental health in the Australian legal profession, that I completed last year, I interviewed a female senior associate. She was a beautiful, clever woman and a brilliant lawyer. She was destined for partnership and had already been put forward.

Yet when I met her, she had just resigned. “Why are you leaving the firm?” I asked. “Have you any idea of the number of times I have been propositioned or harassed by partners and important clients?” Her eyes were watery; the tears not far away. “I have reported the incidents, and nothing has happened – either to the partners or the clients.” She wound up joining the in-house legal team of a major telco. The firm she left was a highly-regarded UK-based multinational. The alleged abusers are still there. I was thinking of these conversations and reports when I read a number of recent studies into ego depletion – the idea that we only have a limited ability to exercise ethical selfcontrol.

In Donald Trump’s case, for example, this may be very little indeed. In neurochemical terms, ego depletion is closely related to the rise and fall of the level of glutamate in the brain. Its action can be seen at work in the famous studies of parole court judges who let more people out on parole just after they’d eaten: food ingestion increases the flow of neural glutamate. So when their glutamate levels decreased, they applied less thought to the individual issues and fell back to the default (don’t let the person out). They became less altruistic and less ethical in the way they went about their work. The idea of ego depletion is not new – it’s been around for over a decade. But what is new is the research that’s shown its effect on moral and ethical behaviour. This applies particularly to firm or team leaders. The researchers behind a recent study found that if a leader displayed ethical behaviour to their teams during the day, they were more likely to display the opposite later – maybe towards their family.