Stephen Cutler, a partner at Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett, and former General Counsel and Vice Chair of JP Morgan Chase, was also a faculty member at the 2019 Vanguard Forum for General Counsels. In an interview after his session there, he shared a simple and incisive take on the GC’s insider-outsider role — one that turns our to be relevant to a lot of other kinds of leaders, too.

If you’re only focused on people at the top — the CEO, if that’s who you work for, or your lead investors or board members, if you are the CEO — you’ll never win the trust and the confidence and “that valued-advisor role that you want” across the organization, Steve said.

So how do you do that? Part of it is doing great work with them and for them. You’re rolling up your sleeves, you want them to know that you’re not just pontificating, dropping a bunch of advice and then, “Ok, now it’s your job.” It’s much more interactive, it’s much more “I feel your pain—this is a problem that I’m really gonna help solve.” A lot of it is just being human, picking up the phone, . . . touching those very human bases.

To hear more of Steve’s thoughts on leading through connection, check out this short digest video.

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