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[Reviewed in THE FUTURIST, July-August 2007]
Your Legacy as a Leader
By Cynthia G. WagnerIf leaders look ahead by looking backward at their potential legacies, they may be able to create better futures for their organizations--and themselves.
If you don't want the only mark you make on an organization to be the one on your own rear end as you go out the door, then the time to think about your "leadership legacy" is before you enter a new position, not as you're about to leave.
"It's never too early to think about the kind of influence your leadership will have after you've retired or taken a position with another company," argue management consultant Robert M. Galford and business journalist Regina Fazio Maruca. "In fact, we believe that the earlier leaders begin to consider their leadership legacy, the better leaders they will be." A leadership legacy is basically a values statement and, as such, reflects personal beliefs and goals. Because it is an attempt to look backward at one's life and work from a point in the future, a legacy is likely to define success differently than would a strategic plan or mission statement.
"Put simply," Galford and Maruca write, "we found that looking forward, people want to achieve success in organizational or performance terms. But looking back, they wanted to know that their efforts were seen--and felt--in a positive way by the individuals they worked with directly and indirectly."
Legacy thinking allows leaders to put their personal values to work in ways that have long-term impacts on their colleagues and employees--and hence the organization--as well as to assess how their own decisions and actions measure up to their values. The goal is to leave behind you a set of positive and empowering values embedded in the organization.
Galford and Maruca cite the experience of the restaurant chain Wendy's in 2005 defending itself against a fraud case as an example of how a leader's legacy influences the organization's future. When a customer claimed to find a severed human finger in her food and sued, the company could have settled the matter quickly and quietly by paying her off. But instead, CEO Jack Schuessler worked with investigators, stood by his employees, and protected the brand. Schuessler credited the legacy of Wendy's founder Dave Thomas "that a reputation is earned by the actions you take every day, and that's still our credo."
The authors emphasize the need for obtaining feedback during the process of legacy thinking, since people who know you or have worked with you may be able to give you examples of how your decisions or actions affected them. As you progress in your leadership role, this feedback will be useful in conducting periodic "legacy audits."
Legacies are not built in a day, and because legacy building is ongoing, success can be redefined. The authors quote legendary television producer Norman Lear (All in the Family):
You have to look at success incrementally. It takes too long to get to any major success. . . . If one can look at life as being successful on a moment-by-moment basis, one might find that most of it is successful. And take the bow inside for it. When we wait for the big bow, it's a lousy bargain. They don't come but once in too long a time.
The legacy-thinking process is a useful personal discovery tool even for nonleaders. In one of many illuminating case studies in the book, Galford and Maruca quote a young businesswoman of bright prospects who found herself in the uncomfortable position of leading an important project:
Right at the end of the meeting I said something like, "I know we can do a great job on this." And then I said, "Just don't f*** it up." . . . I can look back on that now . . . and see clearly that I was trying to do a job that I really wasn't suited to do and did not, in fact, enjoy much.
She chose a different role for herself than leadership, and a more appropriate one for her organization:
I came to realize that I was happiest when I was helping the people around me do "their stuff" better. Not when I was telling them what to do, but when they already knew what they wanted to do and I could help them achieve their goals. To use the language of legacy thinking, I learned that there was too much of a conflict, for me, between the positions I had held and sought, and the roles that fit me best and brought me the most satisfaction.
Your Leadership Legacy offers this valuable lesson: that our actions and attitudes have an influence on other people, though subtly or in ways that may not be immediately felt. We are all role models, whether we are leaders or not, and whether we know or accept it or not. Even thinking occasionally about how our neighbors may one day remember us could help us become better citizens today. As expressed by Barnes Boffey of the nonprofit educational organization Aloha Foundation, "Our lives become the stars that others steer by, and if we live them well, the world will change."
About the Reviewer
Cynthia G. Wagner is managing editor of THE FUTURIST. E-mail cwagner@wfs.org.return to top
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