Gabriel Svedberg leads through communication, joy, and delegation

Gabriel Svedberg has extensive experience as a lawyer, with a career spanning clerkships, work at law firms, and ten years as chief legal officer at Tieto. Since 2010, he has been a partner at Lindahl, where he primarily works with corporate transactions, IT/Tech agreements, and data protection.

Gabriel's first experiences with leadership came during his time in the armed forces. After two years of military service, he became a reserve officer and worked as an officer during the summers while studying law.

"You work a lot with leadership in the military, which is crucial for success. It's a special system because it assumes that people do as they're told. But I also learned that to truly achieve something with people, it has to be stimulating, engaging, and fun," Gabriel explains.

This insight has stayed with him since then, as well as what he himself has appreciated in other leaders.

"The leaders I've appreciated are those who manage to create an engaging, challenging, warm, and fun environment. A safe atmosphere where employees can grow and where there is room to take responsibility and develop."

An individualized leadership

At Lindahl, Gabriel is part of a team-based organization, which requires leadership tailored to the individual — identifying each employee's strengths and challenges to support them in the right way.

"At a company like Lindahl, with many motivated and competent people, the challenge is rarely to increase ambition but rather to create the right conditions to harness it."

Gabriel Svedberg emphasizes the importance of creating an environment where employees feel involved and are given challenges that drive them forward.

"The ambition is, of course, for each employee to be able to use their ambition and knowledge. If someone is moving very quickly, you may need to slow down and focus on accuracy, and if someone is cautious, you need to create space and encourage the person to grow. It's about listening, analyzing, and finding challenges that motivates and makes the work interesting and enjoyable."

Communication and delegation

For Gabriel, regular and clear communication is the foundation of leadership, especially when the pace is high.

"The most important thing for good leadership is communication. Keeping the team informed creates security and engagement. Sometimes we are in situations where time is of the essence, and good communication reduces the negative effects of that and helps us anticipate and handle situations that require quick management."

With many clients and assignments, Gabriel's work requires him to manage his time effectively. His solution? Delegation and careful planning.

"I delegate, delegate, and delegate. From the start, I make sure to build teams that can take responsibility and work independently, and I use my calendar to create space for what I need to do," Gabriel explains.

Early on, giving employees responsibility and trust, while supporting them with constructive feedback, is a way to balance the workload while allowing the individual and the team to develop. Gabriel also emphasizes the importance of thinking long-term to create a sustainable way of working.

"Now I'm using clichés, but we must remember that it's a marathon, not a sprint. We inevitably have work peaks, but you have to balance that over time to find the job manageable, stimulating, and fun. Both team members and leaders need to learn and be aware of that. And for it to work, communication, transparency, and security are important factors."

Gabriel's advice to young lawyers

When Gabriel gives advice to young lawyers, he emphasizes the importance of humility and the understanding that things can be seen in different ways.

"It's easy to think that your perspective is right, but you need to be humble and also generous with your knowledge. There are so many perspectives on how people function in different situations and environments."

Another important piece of advice is: 'If you want to develop into a leader, be a leader.'

"In organizations like Lindahl, there are many opportunities to take on a leadership role, so take the chance when it arises. Training will, of course, be a good complement, but that often comes later, so start taking on leadership roles in various projects and be generous with the knowledge you've gathered. And learn early to delegate and see how rewarding it is to work together."

For Gabriel Svedberg, leadership is not just an internal matter in everyday life but something much larger.

"Leadership is crucial in the competition, both for clients and talents. Good leadership creates a good firm, both internally and externally," he concludes.