Build your leadership legacy
Take a minute to recollect the great leaders that you know about and among their many traits, I am quite certain that legacy is one of them that stands out. This is very true for leaders in any field including as much in business as well. Loosely defined - legacy is what you leave behind for your successor. Every business leader's dream is to create an organization that is ethical, profitable, sustainable and above all stands the test of time. Here's my personal experience and what I think can be done to build a legacy.
I had been leading a fairly large team providing diverse services to our client base. The team was geographical distributed and I had built it almost ground up. My association was reasonably long and I have seen the team, people and our services grow during this period. We were doing quite well on most of the evaluation parameters and were contributing back to the organization as well. Many of my previous blogs have been based on this experience as well. A few months ago, I transitioned into another group in a different capacity or role in our unit (within the same company, just to be clear )
I regularly keep in touch with my ex-team mates and during one such conversation, one of the senior managers remarked - 'We miss you in the group', he later went on to elaborate on certain things that I was doing well (have blown my trumpet enough here). Naturally, a compliment peps you up, doesn't it? On my drive back, I thought about it a little bit more and went into some deep reflection. These were some questions that I was contemplating about
- Is it really a good thing that people miss you even after you have moved out of a certain group?
- Could it be that, they were quite dependent on the leader?
- Did I not do justice to building a team that could keep hitting the ball out of the park every time?
- As a leader, did you just create pockets of excellence and did not permeate that through the entire organization?
On the lighter side - a lesson learnt is, accept a compliment with grace and don't dissect it too much. I do however realized that the team had actually grown significantly, the service diversity had vastly improved and all the vital signs were showing a very nutritious ecosystem. Nevertheless, I believe this was good introspection and here are a few tips from my experience that can help you leave behind a bountiful legacy for your successor. Have provided links to my previous blogs where I have shared personal experiences on each of these areas.
- Every interaction, however small, is an opportunity to diffuse the right attitude in the group (Interact!)
- Make excellence a habit and not an initiative. Don't settle for anything less and challenge your team members
- Create a culture of exploration where people get together question each other and arrive at plausible solutions (Explore!)
- Provide opportunities for the team to think and visualize the future. Let them expand the horizons and through a process of debate the realistic and most probable ones surface
- Communicate passionately and from the heart (Communicate !)
- Drive innovation from the top and push for it to be on everyone's agenda (Innovate!)
I guess some of these have been practiced and some could have been done better. Anyways, these were some of my learnings, I am sure each of you would have done things that have helped you as well. It would be great to hear them ... Good luck and god bless !!!
Comments
Thanks Vinod for picking up this topic and for the excellent idea orientation around it ! It instantly appeals to our inner dream (fear too!) of "person-independent" growth -equipping organizations and tomorrow’s leaders with a culture of leadership that is engrained in the fabric and not just skewed onto a few leaders persona..It is true- when it all started there might have been a bunch of charismatic leaders , and they would have been quick to realize the connection between organizational growth , leadership styles and the price of "personalizing " longer !.
I agree with the InteracT-Explore-Communicate -Innovate model .
May be I wish to add the following from my own journey
-If you wish to build a leadership legacy , and more so if you are doing it for the benefit of the people .community and nations of consequence-it helps if you anchor your visions/actions around some core Values -connecting to your framework-i may coin in -Values centered Innovation .
With flowing time and changing landscape Change is inevitable , and as a leader who wants to build a legacy , it is inevitable that you bring in a "CULTURE " of Core Values , that the future leaders can live by, though its manifestations are bound to change !. You have already touched upon this when you said "..........create an organization that is ethical, profitable, sustainable and above all stands the test of time"
-Second just the common sense that good "followers" who keep on agreeing with current "leaders" may not be the ecosystem you wish to evolve if you want to pass the baton to leaders with capability(whats) and inner capacity (how much). You have touched it when you said about Exploration. Yes, we need challengers, explorers, whistle blowers, fence sitters and followers too If we care about a sustainable organization. How would you create favorable conditions for this ecosystem to emerge, evolve and flourish? Communication is the key , as you rightly touched upon . Not just your oral /written statements matter-more importantly -your acts and talks should align -in the limelight are you always a role model leader ? or are you ready to be vulnerable and transparent ? Like the well laid out rail tracks with provision to expand and contract per the seasons-have you "provided” for such space and time and are you "communicating " that implicitly ?
Posted by: suraj viswanath(Infy) | January 11, 2012 5:43 AM