Tinelli on Leadership )
Ideas you can use today Issue 18 - June 30, 2006
In This Issue
  • The Leader's Legacy.
  • A Door Slammed Shut – Your Mind.
  • An Important Distinction.
  • Summer has arrived. I hope you all are taking the opportunity to enjoy outdoor activities, family gatherings, and various holidays.


    Archie Tinelli, Ph.D.

    The Leader's Legacy.

    I just left a meeting with a client who wanted to talk about his legacy. On the verge of retirement, he was thinking about what he would leave behind and was concerned that he might not have made much of a difference.

    The idea of making a difference and of leaving a legacy is a question that all leaders, not just those approaching retirement, ought to be asking themselves from the day they take a new position. Why is that?

    Leaders have a limited amount of time in which they can make an impact. The sooner they can decide and act upon the legacy they want to leave the better. Unfortunately, many leaders fail to establish what they want to leave as their legacy early in their tenure, if at all.

    Most leaders spend their time improving effectiveness, increasing market share, reducing costs, growing revenue, refocusing strategy, fighting fires, removing obstacles, and integrating new business units without ever asking what difference it will make in the long-term viability of the business. They fail to ask what legacy they will leave behind.

    The question is important, for several reasons.

    First, unless leaders know what they want to accomplish in terms of their legacy, it’s easy for them to be diverted from attaining their objective. With the normal challenges and demands on their time, leaders can easily, and often readily, direct their attention from their legacy to the immediate and urgent.

    Leaders who don’t wonder about and focus on their legacy leave to others the most important item on their agenda – what they ultimately want to accomplish during their tenure. Granted, the organization should have a great deal to say about what they do, but all leaders should leave personal footprints that mark their distinctive stay.

    Furthermore, leaders should bring their personal interests and abilities to their work in ways that are later reflected in their legacies. Three quick examples.

    My elder son, working as a Marketing Manager, is already planning for his next job, most likely in another firm. He’s clear about the legacy he wants to leave – increasing the recognition and relevance of marketing in a firm for which marketing has not been an important and valued player.

    A senior executive, a client in a Fortune 50 energy company, is very clear about his legacy. He wants to ensure future profitability and operational excellence by establishing regional back offices that transform how their work is done in serving internal clients.

    Another client, at a leading insurance company, wants to leave behind a more responsive, business- focused department that serves its internal clients more quickly and effectively. The department she wants to leave behind is one that is known across the firm as a vital partner in solving critical business challenges, not just another corporate department that is not attuned to the business of the business.

    In each case, the leaders have identified something that improves the particular part of the organization that they lead and is at the same time something that is uniquely suited to their interests, knowledge, skills, and abilities. Their intended legacy is tightly connected and attributable to their particular attributes and characteristics – it is something that no one else can do quite like them.

    Leaving a legacy is something that all leaders should consciously plan to do. It shouldn’t matter whether you are at the top of the organization or not. And it shouldn’t matter how long you stay in your position.

    What matters is that leaders plan for the legacy they want to leave. What’s your plan?

    A Door Slammed Shut – Your Mind.

    Years ago, I worked with several entrepreneurs and business leaders who hired me, but adamantly refused to listen to anything I, or anyone else, had to say. They were, in my mother’s words, lunkheads, people who were unwilling to listen.

    Since then, I have decided that my first task in deciding if I will take on a new client is to determine whether they are capable of listening, or not. If not, I don’t take the job, no matter how lucrative. As a result, I’ve turned down a lot of work. But I’ve also saved myself a lot of headaches.

    Why does this matter? Leaders excel when they open the door of their minds to continue to learn and to adapt to the demands of their jobs. That means, in particular, the willingness to listen to critical feedback and adjust their performance as needed.

    Is the door to your mind open, or slammed shut?

    An Important Distinction.

    Earlier this week, I was teaching an essential management skills course when the question arose as to what’s the balance point between being yourself and adapting to the role of a leader.

    How much can or should you just be who you are? Versus, to what extent should you change to fulfill your role as a leader, especially when that change may not reflect your personality or natural tendency?

    The class made an important distinction. There is a difference between your personality and your behavior, the actions you take as a leader.

    They then decided that leaders should always honor their personal identity, who they believe themselves to be, and not take actions that run counter to it. At the same time, they decided that leaders should adapt their behaviors to address the challenges and issues at work.

    The lesson is clear – never lose sight of who you are while adapting what you do to meet the demands of the job.

    Smart class.

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