Legacy is Overrated
My stepping down as president of the consulting firm where I’ve worked for the past 19 years was a process over two years in the making. I am immensely proud, happy, and relieved that we were able to work together among our leadership team to develop an overall succession plan that governs how transitions will work in the future and that puts the first steps of the first transitions into motion.
It just so happened that the specific timing of me stepping down and others stepping up coincided with the national discourse we were having around President Biden’s competency to run for reelection and his eventual stepping aside for Vice President Harris to take on the role of Democratic Party presidential candidate. Succession is difficult, messy, and fraught, and I watched that play out for the highest office in the land as well as my own professional status, not to mention countless other non-profit, for-profit, and government entities of which I am familiar.
I will briefly say, about my own decision and action in stepping down from being president, that for me it’s the kind of role I enjoy and think I’m good at, but it’s also the kind of role I know I cannot hold for forever. And the temporal aspect of that responsibility is both a matter of personal preservation and work-life balance, it’s also to participate in the healthy and nature transition of older leaders giving way for younger leaders to ascend. Which, again, I’m immensely grateful we were able to figure this out.
Which leads me to today’s topic, which is legacy, a word that gets thrown around a lot and quite frankly I’m starting to feel is overused if not outright abused. Leadership is a sacred responsibility, and I value highly the importance of good leadership in the for-profit, non-profit, and government sectors, whether holding my leaders to a high standard or holding myself to that same high standard when it’s my turn to lead. So please don’t misconstrue my comments as devaluing the position at all. It is an important and hard and worthy role to play.
Which is why I feel that when people start talking about “legacy,” they are substituting what is good for the greater good, what is good for the organization, and even what is good for themselves for a shallower calculus around ego and insecurity. “Legacy” as a value to pursue is healthy when it means that it matters to us how people will remember our leadership, so we are sure that we execute our role with integrity and courage. It’s healthy when it matters to us that our work is important and yet unfinished, and so we want to do what we can so that it continues beyond our ability to directly contribute, rather than things falling apart once we stop being able to show up. And I have no doubt that most people, most of the time, have these nobler things in mind when they invoke “legacy” in their thinking around how to fulfill their leadership role and what it looks like to move on.
But I also have no doubt that many people, much of the time,
invoke “legacy” in ways that are less admirable. Some leaders stay around too
long, beyond their ability to serve at a high level and in a way that blocks
younger leaders’ opportunities to step up, because to them “legacy” means
continuing to be admired for the work we do and worrying about whether we will
cease to be admired once we stop working. Others do eventually move on but do not
set up their predecessors for success, because them failing and their
organizations failing makes them feel better that what they will be remembered
for is uniquely being able to find success when others that came after could
not. Still others take on vanity projects because they are trying to cement
their legacy with something that they want to be remembered by, even if those
projects are not in the long-term interest of the organization that other
people will be running long after they’ve departed.
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