General counsel

A handsome silvered fifty five year-old midwesterner with the bearing, and legal acumen, of a 747 pilot. If you encounter him in the lift he won’t have a clue who you are, even though you have worked in his department since 1998.

General counsel habitually float above the messy tedium of actual legal work. They owe their elevated position to a knack for side-stepping difficult decisions — something which, in a large organization during peacetime, it is easy to do, especially one with well-functioning escalation circles. Being commander-in-chief of the armed forces is a cinch when the nation is not at war. Thus, most general counsel are inclined to attribute their position to their own extraordinary judgment, commercial nous and deep client relationships rather than having been mucking about in a dinghy far out on the tidal flats when the rising tide came in that floats all boats. They will even, humbly but without irony, accept industry awards for their talents. If you are lucky, they’ll modestly attribute their unique achievements to their wonderful team, without which none of their legerdemain would have been possible.

Their main challenge is justifying their position at all. They like to be seen as visionaries, and will embrace behaviour which speaks to their grand strategic vision. They might commission a global coverage model, or a detailed, multi-dimensional risk taxonomy. Completion of this futile exercise will be left to their teams, of course.