Your Professional Legacy
Legacy: something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past
“Legacy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legacy. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.
Legacy usually means the things we leave to others when we die. What’s in the will? Who gets the car? I believe that it’s much more and plays a part in how we approach our work. Our legacy doesn’t have to be about things. It can also be about impact. Have you ever wondered what your workplace legacy will be like once you’ve left? We often think of what we’ll leave family and friends but rarely think about what we’ll leave the people at work. Start thinking about it today, especially if you’re a new manager. Why? Because everything you do and say impacts someone in some way and often in ways that aren’t obvious to you. You build your reputation daily with your team, organization, or industry, but when you leave, you leave your legacy. How do you want to be remembered?
Types of Legacies
Think back to your favorite boss. What did they do or say that you still carry with you in your current workplace? Now think back to the last person who cut you off in traffic. Can you still feel the anger or fear that they might have caused an accident? Did it change the way you drive when you approach that spot in the road? Both of these memories, feelings, and actions represent legacies left to you by those who came before you. They are not material but they do or did impact you. The thing is, they can be direct (your boss) or indirect (the bad driver). They can also be long-lasting or instantaneous. As managers and leaders, we must keep this in mind. What we do, what we say, and how we act impact others whether we interact with them for years or seconds.
Direct Legacy
Unless we live alone in a cave, we interact with other people. Either by choice or by necessity. Regardless of how they come into our lives, how we treat them leaves them with some sense of who we are and how it affects them. Think about it. How you show up affects the actions and attitudes of your team. Are you the type of manager that encourages them to be creative or do you micromanage the hell out of them because you don’t trust them to be able to do the job better than you?
How does working with you day in and day out impact their job performance? Does it affect how they react to situations outside of the workplace? It does. I once had a boss who negatively impacted the team to the point that they had filed more than thirty grievances against her. One of the complaints? She never said, “Good morning.” While that may seem like a trivial complaint, it not only affected her relationship with the team, it affected their attitudes and dealings with customers and the overall reputation of the team suffered.
Indirect Legacy
These are the people who exist on the fringes of our world. We often forget about them because they are the ancillary people who keep the wheels turning in the background. It is important to remember that we impact them too. When was the last time you said “thank you” to the person who cleans your building or delivers your packages? What about the customer service person you called to repair something? Your interactions with these people leave an impact. If you come in and are in a foul mood, do you ignore them and act like they don’t exist? Are they just “the help” and not part of the team? Take a moment and think about how their job affects your job. What is the legacy they leave to you?
Why it Matters
“When people show you who they are, believe them,” said the great poet and author Maya Angelou. The advice can help us plan the legacy we want to leave. We create wills to leave our material possessions, so why not develop a plan for impacting others before we leave? What do we want them to remember? Our emotional intelligence? Our ability to think calmly and lead with confidence? What about the managerial courage to do the right thing for our people? If not, our legacy might be one of laziness, cowardice, and incompetence. But If we take the time to increase our self-awareness, use the tools, and apply the skills we’ve not only learned but taught, we will leave a legacy of that person who encouraged others to be the best at what they do. This is the art and skill of management and leadership.