This decision to find a second home to which they can escape was not only expensive for them (they needed Gwen’s second income to afford their second residence as well as travel expenses), Their second home also caused major tensions in the relationships they had established with their children. Though their two sons and one daughter were now in their early teenage years, it was hard for Derek and Gwen to leave them behind. School attendance prevented their kids from joining them as they escaped from New England.
Derek is also facing the challenge of working with his administrative staff. They are very deferential to him—having been serving in most instances for fifteen to twenty years in the supreme court offices. While they considered it an honor to be serving at this high level—and often were a bit arrogant when working with administrative staff from “lower” courts—they bestowed even greater honor on the men and women they serve. Derek is always addressed as “Your honor” or “Mr. Justice”. He would rather be called “Derek”, but this simply is not allowed! At an even more important level, Derek doesn’t really know much about management (having originally worked in a very small, though prestigious, law office). He doesn’t have anyone that he can turn to when confronting a managerial issue with one of his administrative assistants.
Put quite simply, Derek is feeling very lonely in his job. He is unqualified and unprepared to oversee a relatively large administrative staff. A perfect storm of solitude and performance-related anxiety swirl around the head and heart of this “honored” adjudicator. His first quad has shrived away (at least on the job). As Joe Luft noted, this leads to poor communication and to a whole host of assumptions that other people make about Derek’s motives and behaviors. He wants to be kind and modest in his relationships with those who work for him; however, he is often viewed as indecisive and “soft” in his management of the staff. Most of the old-timers think that Derek is still uncomfortable in his role – even after six years. They are accurate in their assessment and their own cautious interactions with Derek seems to exacerbate his “clumsiness” as a judicial leader.
Is there any way to rescue Derek from this storm? When he first became a member of the supreme court (or even when he was first appointed as a judge), Derek might have been given the opportunity to be “mentored” by a very senior-level judge (or perhaps a judge who had recently retired). This probably would not help much now. At the present time, Derek could be assisted by an executive coach who knows something about the solitude and sense of restraint that many professionals experience when they move into leadership roles – whether this be in medicine, law enforcement or the judiciary. In each of these instances, the professional wears a uniform and is addressed by other people with a title: “Doctor”, “Officer” or “Your Honor.”.
