By Joshua Luke Sandoval
Assistant Criminal District Attorney in Bexar County
If you are a prosecutor, you likely serve in a leadership role, whether you realize it or not. The role of prosecutor demands leadership regardless of one’s assignment. On a daily basis we are in situations where people turn to us for guidance and direction. We are tasked with leading our work team: other prosecutors, victim assistance coordinators (VACs), investigators, and paralegals. Other times, we need to serve as leaders for witnesses, law enforcement, and even jurors (after we are tasked with guiding and influencing the jury as we argue our case).
A recent read of the book Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek both challenged me and helped me see leadership as an important quality in how I practice law. The book focuses on numerous case studies highlighting the importance and need for leadership in our lives. Its examples and lessons are applicable to prosecutors too—our profession is demanding and requires leadership and courage.
As I finished the book, I reflected on some of the general lessons that really spoke to me. These particular lessons were relevant to the challenges of being a leader and the practice of law: the value of competition, how to foster trust, and looking after your team.
Competition
Attorneys live, work, and even breathe competition. Prosecution teams are passionate about their cases and want to convince juries to return just verdicts. A poignant bit of caution that the book highlights is to not let the competitive spirit spread too much into our daily interactions with the team. How have I let Sinek’s sage advice affect my practice of law? Every chance I get, I strive to remember that competition can be healthy as it drives us and inspires us to be better. However, competition should not color how we interact with colleagues. The moment it becomes the primary motivation in our daily work is when we lose sight of how to best achieve just outcomes in our cases.
How have I sought to implement these suggestions? When working with my team, I have found it useful to start off by asking for their input and ideas before I present mine. Eliciting opinions from every person before I put in my two cents has really helped me to personally emphasize the team mentality and minimize the individual aspect of the job we do.
Foster trust
Teams work best when its members can trust one another and their leader. The type of trust that the book discusses is more than just believing what someone is saying. The trust that is necessary for true leadership is grounded in integrity and transparency. It is imperative that your team believes that you (as a leader) will be right there when the goal demands it. Leadership doesn’t place you on a throne above toil in the trenches. Rather, true leadership is an obligation to work alongside every team member, no matter how long it takes or how hard it may be. This is how trust is earned: through work and sacrifice.
Trust sounds like a great idea in the abstract. It’s easy to describe and most everyone will agree that it is a worthy endeavor. But how exactly do we take it from a concept and turn it into a daily practice? When I am acting as a leader with my team, trust is paramount. If my colleagues believe I am willing to undertake any task that they are doing, I am on a good road to establishing trust. Since reading Sinek’s book, I have tried to be more cognizant of the tasks I take on and the tasks that I give to my team. Every day, I strive to make it known that no role or duty I ask of my team is one that I wouldn’t willingly undertake myself. Trust needs action, not just words.
Look after your team
True leadership is service-oriented. Every member of a team possesses a valuable role. Simultaneously, each member is a normal person with real struggles and worries. Life is difficult enough without the harsh realities we see on a daily basis. Our job can take a toll on anyone. Keeping that in mind, try to create an atmosphere in which goals (both individual and team) are clear. Make sure those around you feel supported and know that their efforts are valued. Compliment team members when there is a job well done. When mistakes are made (as they invariably will be), be direct that a standard wasn’t met and develop realistic methods to obtain different results in the future. If you want results, make them measurable and quantifiable.
Although it can be difficult to point out when someone has fallen short of expectations, leaders cannot run from their obligations. Leaders must step out of their comfort zone for the sake of the team and for the best results. Leaders stand up for their teams and offer positive feedback and constructive redirection when needed.
This is one of the most rewarding changes to incorporate into your leadership repertoire. Since reading Sinek’s book, I have worked to radically improve this aspect of my leadership. Daily, I make sure team expectations are fair and clearly communicated. This is where the regular docket meeting can really come into play. Personally, I have found it useful to make progress inquiries with team members. If someone’s pressing tasks have proven to be more laborious than anticipated, I pivot and reassign tasks or extend deadlines as needed. Just the other day, a list of potential witnesses to a violent offense uncovered exponentially more work than initially anticipated. As such, I had to change my initial expectation of how much effort that part of case preparation would require, and I stepped in and took on some work to even things out.
Actions like this (and re-evaluating the plan of attack) ensure the workload is equitably distributed. No one wants to see team members suffer from burnout or have to carry a disproportionate load. As a leader on a team, you must make certain that every person has just the right number of important tasks on their to-do list.
Conclusion
It’s easy for me to look back at the formative years of my prosecutorial career and wish that I could be half the ADA that some of my mentors were. If I had to wager, I’d say a lot of y’all might feel the same way. I have yet to meet a prosecutor who can’t look back and fondly mention at least one mentor who helped form them into what and who they are today. Strive to be that type of mentor and a leader for those around you. Leadership is difficult, but it is beyond rewarding and in many ways is the glue that holds our profession together.
As Simon Sinek put it, “Leadership is not a license to do less; it is a responsibility to do more. And that’s the trouble. Leadership takes work. It takes time and energy. The effects are not always easily measured, and they are not always immediate.”