A recent article on Medium.com made the point that supervisors and managers who have had legal training make better leaders. Why? Let’s look at some of the reasons:
1. Legally-trained managers can spot the issues. If a manager doesn’t recognize a potential legal question and deal with it properly, your business can be in big trouble. A leader helps the organization avoid legal problems, and knows when to ask for legal help.
2. Legally-trained supervisors make better decisions. As we discuss in our Managing Within the Law program, the best leaders balance legal needs, business needs, and corporate values. Your supervisors already know your organization’s values and they understand what’s best for the business, so with legal training they can become leaders who can make truly informed decisions.
3. Legally-trained bosses lead by example. Managers and supervisors who have an understanding of employment law can prevent harassment, discrimination, workplace bullying, and other bad behavior by setting an example and sharing their knowledge with their teams. By behaving legally and ethically, leadership establishes a workplace culture of fairness, equity, and inclusion.
What this means to you:
Don’t worry–legal training will not turn your managers and supervisors into lawyers!
But, educating them about topics such as wage and hour law and the Family and Medical Leave Act, providing them with guidance about what is legal—and illegal—to ask in an interview, and training them about how to properly document employee successes and challenges will make them confident and competent leaders of their teams. As the article concludes: “Giving your management access to legal knowledge is the only way businesses can reduce legal costs and use business law to their advantage.”
Let Fair Measures help you to develop your managers and supervisors into legally-trained leaders. To find out more about our national HR training programs or to book in-person or online workshops, please call 800-458-2778 or email.
Updated 05-16-2021
Information here is correct at the time it is posted. Case decisions cited here may be reversed. Please do not rely on this information without consulting an attorney first.