"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Have you ever thought about your legacy?
When you’re young, the world’s your oyster. You have all the time in the world. It’s the time to live for the moment, to seize the day. This day is the first day of the rest of your life. Life moves fast, so live it to the fullest. And all the other cloying and unhelpful cliches.
Frankly, the young just don’t care much about legacy, what with all that time they have left. Legacy is for the long run. It’s a game best left to the gray-haired folks shuffling towards retirement.
But is that true?
In reality, legacy is the culmination of all your experiences and efforts throughout your life and not just who or what you are in the end. That means the sooner you consider legacy, the sooner you can start shaping yours.
For leaders, legacy is paramount. But the leader’s legacy is not about self-congratulation and ego-stroking. In fact, the leader’s legacy is largely the result of leaders just doing what leaders do, making a significant impact that happens to reverberate long after they’ve left the building.
The Bucket Test: Wet Throughout
Perhaps you have seen a poem by Saxon White Kessinger called “The Indispensable Man.” In it he writes,
Take a bucket and fill it with water, Put your hand in it up to the wrist, Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining, Is a measure of how much you’ll be missed. You can splash all you wish when you enter, You may stir up the water galore, But stop, and you’ll find that in no time, It looks quite the same as before.
He’s talking about the mark you leave behind when you depart a situation, which, he says, is none at all. So, what’s the point of trying if we’re all replaceable? But wait! Great leaders know this is mostly bunk. Sure, no one is or should be indispensable—indispensability’s just a sign of a broken culture—and true leaders don’t really fret much over whether they’re missed.
That said, great leaders—by default—leave a mark that will long outlast them. Not content with splashing around a bucket, they seek to transform the contents of that bucket for the better and maybe upgrade the bucket itself before they go.
I’ll leave off the bucket metaphor now, but leaders are in the business of transformation and improvement. In short, leaders are in the business of legacy, a legacy that can change the world.
The Legacy Challenge: More Than Just Marble and Name Plaques
When we think of legacy, we usually think of something easily recognizable or even tangible. In a family, legacy might take the form of an inheritance or even one’s offspring. In business, legacy might take the form of a particularly robust run of success or some physical structure, such as a new suite of offices.
In higher education, I have noticed that most presidents—like the pharaohs before them—are almost comically mad to erect at least one edifice that bears their name before they shamble off. Sometimes this monument serves a purpose, such as a new library. Other times, it’s pointless, like a campus bell tower. The presidents’ immortality is assured—they imagine, by their name being affixed to the new building.
These physical memorials, though—as impressive and visible as they are—constitute a crude and superficial sort of legacy. Mere years later, the only legacy that will really resonate is that name on the building accompanied by a half-interested “Who’s that?” from the occasional passerby.
The Leader’s Legacy: Invisible but Invincible
Now, let's talk about the legacies that truly matter—the ones that, unlike a new parking garage or an indoor pool, quietly shape the future. These legacies have nothing to do with stroking egos or physically defacing the landscape. These are the legacies that genuine leaders, the ones who really get it, naturally cultivate just by practicing good leadership, and they take two forms:
1. Establishing resilient systems that are sustained by healthy cultures,
2. Creating and empowering other great leaders.
Systems and Cultures: One Aspect of Legacy
Let’s start with creating systems and cultures.
Any half-decent manager can cobble together a functional system. But getting that system to actually work, keeping it running smoothly, and continuously improving it? That is the stuff of true leadership and is precisely where culture-building comes in.
The culture of an organization determines if the systems will actually function properly or at all. Think of a car engine. You can build the engine and fuel it properly, and it’ll start just fine. But to keep it running smoothly, you will need to lubricate it with oil. That’s culture! The Valvoline of workplace systems!
A healthy culture regularly fosters strong values and inspires the best in everyone, which keeps institutions going. Such cultures are not only welcoming and encouraging, but they cultivate creativity and progress.
When a leader establishes effective systems and the culture to sustain them, that legacy often outlives the leader. Even if the next person hired to succeed them is just a placeholder or a dud, that successor can still benefit from the systemic and cultural groundwork their predecessor laid.
Power to the People: The Other Leadership Legacy
The second type of legacy is more durable and has a much, much greater reach. This legacy revolves around people and the development of other leaders.
The simple fact is that great leaders beget other great leaders. Doing so is just a natural extension of being a true leader, and they do it in two ways:
One way is by example.
The behaviors any manager exhibits can be contagious. If they act like a jerk, then they will preside over a culture rife with pettiness, egotism, control freakery, and such. In short they will be a mere boss.
If they embody true leadership, though, they will inspire others to trust one another enough to collaborate on mutual success. Such is the impact of example.
The second method is even more straightforward: through direct instruction.
This is when leaders teach others the discipline of great leadership. They can use trainings, coaching, mentorship, and the like in any combination. This practice is intentional, sometimes formal, and always impactful.
Both methods—example and instruction—are needed to bring up new leaders. After all, example without instruction can only take you so far. And instruction without example just creates a counterproductive climate of “do as I say, not as I do,” which, by the way, is also known as hypocrisy and is anathema to leadership.
The Compound Interest of Leadership: Changing the World
The legacy piece kicks in when others find success as leaders themselves and spread the leadership ethos far and wide. Again, this legacy has nothing to do with ego. It’s simply what great leaders do by default. Leaders inspire and bring up new leaders; they beget leaders. And those new leaders go on to beget even more leaders. And so on and on.
And this legacy of exponential leadership isn’t confined to your original institution. As new leaders fan out to new businesses, organizations, and even industries, the leadership ethos travels with them, indefinitely and without limit. It’s the compound interest of leadership—small actions that grow massively to impact the future. This is how we change the world!
If all this seems a little overwhelming or even far-fetched, remember that creating new leaders is just a routine activity of being a leader. It’s not some lofty ideal or additional task listed under “other duties as assigned.” It’s in the virtual job description of great leadership.
The Leadership Challenge: It’s Your Oyster
As a leader, contemplating your legacy as I’ve described it isn’t an exercise in self-indulgence. It’s a crucial part of your role that demands immediate attention. If you’re not busy creating solid systems, cultivating positive cultures, and nurturing new leaders, then what exactly are you doing? I can tell you this: You’re not leading.
No, great leaders are preoccupied with legacy, not out of self-regard but because the values and behaviors of leadership are not one-offs. A leadership without lasting impact is no leadership at all because leaders, by definition and inclination, shape the future. They lead today to forge a better tomorrow.
So, get cracking on that legacy now, whatever your age. Look around. Institutions all over are desperate for new and better systems and healthier cultures. Even more chronically, the whole world is crying out for better leaders—we see it everywhere in every aspect of life. All that’s required is that you lead well. By doing so you will create all the legacy you will ever need. That’s how we change the world!
How often do you consider your legacy as a leader? What legacy will you leave behind in terms of systems, cultures, and people?
Great leaders need to cultivate their legacy so that we can change the world for the better, and I can help.
Unlock the Great Leader Within! Download my free resource, the Transform To GREATness Toolkit, now!
I look forward to hearing from you.
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The Only Legacy a Great Leader Needs: Changing the World