The partner's observation in the NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL about summers scared me. After all, I came of professional age during the era of The Organization Man/The Professional Woman. That partner noted to reporter Nate Raymond, "There's not a cocky one in the bunch."
Society, clients, law firms need cocky. It's that self-assured ability to transcend those normal emotional roadblocks like fear, artificial decorum, and even reality. Tech visionary Steve Jobs has always been cocky. So have Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Kanter, uncertainty expert Nassim Taleb, and political survivor of even the Rhode Island lead paint litigation defeat Attorney General Patrick Lynch.
Cocky doesn't have to be a continuum. It doesn't have to end up in entitled, smug, lazy. It can just be knowing one's self-worth and value to the organization, even when there's a dog fight going on over job slots or new business.
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