How to leave a legacy, as a leader

There is much chatter in leadership discussion circles about legacy, particularly the legacy a leader may leave once they depart an organisation or role. And it seems that “What’s the legacy you want to leave?” is on many interviewers’ lists of questions (whether it is a good question or not is debatable).

Leaving a legacy is a beautiful idea and a great way of thinking about the impact you might wish to leave behind as a leader. As a leadership principle, leaving a role or an organisation better than you found is a great aspirational goal.

And leaving a legacy as a leader is one of the highest forms of positive impact a leader can have. It is a powerful thing you can do because it will enable you to drive influence and impact well into the future, long after you have departed the halls of your organisation or current role.

I don’t know about you, but when I started my leadership journey, I didn’t think about “my legacy” in quite those terms. This is because leaving a legacy was not at the forefront of my thinking in my many roles. Instead, leaving a positive impact and helping others achieve their goals, including clients, seemed much more attainable. So, I did what I thought was right at a particular moment and with a particular decision. 

I think a legacy comes after the fact. The legacy we leave is determined by the people we lead, not by us. However, it can be shaped by who we are and our actions.

So, before “leaving” a legacy, consider who you are and what impact you want to leave. Here are some things to think about that might help.

Clarify your values

What are your values? Are they aligned with your position and organisation? And have you shared them? I have written about this before, and you can check it out here if you haven’t looked at your values lately. How you live and demonstrate your values daily is foundational for any leader.

Define guiding principles

Principles come in many guises, and you can have a variety of principles to help you deal with different situations. Here, I am explicitly talking about principles that help guide your decisions.

For me, three guiding principles for many of my business decisions revolved around a) how a decision may impact the team, b) how a decision may impact clients and c) how a decision might impact the company long term. These principles guided my thinking and decision-making, especially if I was unclear about the best direction or had competing priorities.

Principles help us uphold our values in many situations we will face as leaders. And there is one thing I can guarantee you as a leader – you will face situations and have to make decisions that many people in non-leadership positions will not face. That is the challenge of leadership.

Of course, your principles will be different. They will be yours. There is no one set of principles or one way to define your principles. So, the best I can say to you is to take the time to clarify your principles. Steven Covey’s book – the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, does a great job of getting you started. It’s an oldie but has stood the test of time more than many other leadership books. I will write about uncovering your principles in 2024, as I think the topic deserves some focus, especially as we leave the last few months of 2023.

Envision your impact

Many organisations take a long-term view of the impact they want to have in the world. Many individuals do as well. It becomes a guiding light to help clarify priorities and where we want to spend our time, money and energy. Do the same and make the impact you want to accomplish be about other people, your organisation, or the world. Please do not make it about yourself. 

No, I am not asking you to be selfless. It is about understanding your unique value to the world in the context of the world. Not what you can gain from the world, but what can the world gain from you. You, as the unique being that you are. 

For example, as a leader, you might decide that helping others achieve their full potential is the impact that you want to have. You then align your priorities to that impact. You might ensure you have a one-on-one with your team members, understanding what they want to do and finding ways to help them achieve it. It can be demonstrated through setting up a work environment that is collegial, open-minded and curious so that people have the psychological safety needed to bring their best selves to work. Or it could be that you will always ensure clarity and transparency through your behaviours that develop, inspire and support others to succeed. 

So it is about you (of course it is!), but it is about you and your actions as it relates to others. 

Embrace courage

To leave a legacy is about making a difference, and making a difference takes courage. Courage to stand up for yourself and others. Courage to stick to your principles. Courage to do the right thing at the moment where it counts. Someone once said, “The legacy you leave is the life you lead”. So, how will you lead in the day-to-day? What courageous things will you need to do?

Prioritise people

I often hear from many first-time managers: “I am not sure I like the people part of management”, to which I reply, “Then please don’t be a manager”. We leave an impact (and hopefully a legacy) through people. It is people who will discuss the things they learned from you. The behaviours they saw you demonstrate and the support you gave them. I can’t remember many of the deals I was involved in – and I was involved in many with significant dollars attached to them. But I remember the people and how we worked, laughed and created an impact. It’s not the results that people will remember, but how they felt working together and the impact they generated.

Learn from mistakes

We will not always get it right as leaders. We will make mistakes. That is all natural and part of growth and learning. However, you must learn to unlearn, correct, reset, and adjust as a leader. From my experience, unless it is illegal or unethical, most people will focus more on how you deal with the mistake and correct the issue than the mistake itself. So, be prepared for the inevitable where you will do something wrong. And have a plan and a clear set of principles on how you will respond.

Legacy is for life

A legacy is not just about work. I realise I talked about it in that context because this is a leadership blog, but leaving a legacy is way beyond just work. It’s daily engagement with family, friends, neighbours, community and the world around us. It is about how we use our values, principles, and courage to do the right thing – whatever that might be for us – when we need to. It is about how we front up and lead in our little corner of the world.

Final thoughts

As we come towards the end of 2023 and the time when perhaps we are reviewing the year that was and what might be coming our way in 2024 and if you feel that leaving a legacy is something you want to consider (and I hope you do, as it can be an additional lens to view the impact you want to have in the world), then focus on getting to know yourself better, understand your values and the principles from which you make decisions, demonstrate the behaviours through your brand of courage, make people the priority and learn how to deal with setbacks and mistakes.

Legacy is a gift that we hand to others without expecting anything back. What is the gift that you want to leave behind? Would love to hear your thoughts about leaving a legacy.

And as always, if you invest in yourself, the rewards will be unfathomable.

And with that, I leave you in 2023 thankful for your company this year. Thank you for reading, commenting, sharing, agreeing and disagreeing. I have learned a lot from you, and through you. I wish you and yours a wonderful festive season, a safe year-end and a happy New Year.

May peace come to the Middle East, Sudan, Congo, and Ukraine soon, and we can start 2024 rebuilding a better world for all.

Until next time.

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