Leadership lessons learned: confessions of a prosecutor.

• Author: Lacey, Jackie

YEARS AGO my husband, David, and I bought our first house. We spent a great deal of our money on the down payment and had very little money to fix it up. The interior of the home needed painting. We decided we would paint it ourselves. My husband is an accountant and I am a prosecutor. We had never painted a house before. But the home improvement store commercials made it look so easy we decided to give it a try.

The Friday before the weekend we were scheduled to paint, I was leaving my office when I noticed a man standing on a ladder painting the hallway of the office. I stopped to ask the man for tips on how to paint. Without leaving the ladder he looked me up and down from head to toe. I was wearing a blue pinstriped suit. I had a professional French manicure. 1 had a briefcase and I was wearing expensive shoes. He went back to painting and he said the following words, "I will give you a tip--hire a painter." He went on to lecture me about the skill needed to paint and everything that was required to do a good job. He ended with a statement that stayed with me for nearly 30 years: "Everyone thinks they can paint but everyone can't paint."

I did not listen to his advice and David and I did paint the inside of our house. We made of mess of things. It did not turn out well.

The painter's advice applies to so many situations. It is especially true with leadership: "Everyone thinks they can lead but everyone can't lead."

Just like a good painter, to be a good leader you must have the vision to see what a project will look like before you begin. You must be patient enough to do the prep work. You must develop a steady hand and be able to work consistently until the job is done. You must be able to clean up the spills and make it look like nothing ever happened. You must pay attention to the price of everything. You must be a good time manager. You must be able to leave a place looking a lot better than when you started.

I learned some of the most important leadership lessons, not so much from my successes, but from my failures.

Approximately 13 years before I became the district attorney I was appointed to my first management job. I was not prepared.

THE CHALLENGES

I had no prior experience supervising anyone but my children. It turns out that that wasn't a bad thing as many of the principles I employed in raising them would prove helpful as a manager.

I had no knowledge of the details on the inner workings of staff. I had to learn their job duties. I had no knowledge of employment laws that regulate sexual harassment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Family Medical Leave Act.

In addition to my...