Jack Welch (1935-March 1, 2020) the only child of a railroad conductor from Peabody, MA attributed his success to his mother, Grace, who he regularly called the most influential person in his life.
Grace Welch invested in her son both with love and tough love and left a powerful and positive legacy of her own. “Grace Welch taught me the value of competition, just as she taught me the pleasure of winning and the need to take defeat in stride.”
Jack Welch wrote in his memoir. “If I have any leadership style, a way of getting the best out of people, I owe it to her. Tough and aggressive, warm and generous, she was a great judge of character. She always had opinions of the people she met. She could ‘smell a phony a mile away.’”
“The insights she drilled into me never faded,” he recalled. “She always insisted on facing the facts of a situation. One of her favorite expressions was ‘Don’t kid yourself. That’s the way it is.’”
“Perhaps the greatest single gift she gave me was self-confidence,” Welch reminisced. “It’s what I’ve looked for and tried to build in every executive who has ever worked with me. Confidence gives you courage and extends your reach. It lets you take greater risks and achieve far more than you ever thought possible. Building self-confidence in others is a huge part of leadership. It comes from providing opportunities and challenges for people to do things they never imagined they could do—rewarding them after each success in every way possible.”
Every organization has a culture, whether positive or negative. In the same context every leader will leave a legacy, whether positive or negative, memorable or forgotten, impactful or dispassionate.
Since authenticity is another attribute of great leaders, positive, impactful, and memorable legacies are not something that can be conjured up. Like the cultures that they create during their life, positive, impactful, and memorable legacies are the byproduct of great leaders simply living their values.
That does not mean that a leader cannot be intentional about their behaviors during their life. Quite the opposite, it’s the intentionality of the leader as it relates to their behaviors that allows them to create both positive, impactful, and memorablecultures and legacies.
An article in Entrepreneur provides further insights: Leaving a Positive Leadership Legacy Is Really About Living Your Values Now
The preface from a book in The Ken Blanchard Series on Leadership suggests that whatever your position, if you influence change in the lives of those around you, you are engaged in an act of leadership. And if you are a leader in any sense, you are creating a legacy as you live your daily life. That legacy is the sum total of the difference you make in the lives of others.
Will you consciously craft your legacy or simply leave it up to chance? nbsp; Through an insightful parable Your Leadership Legacy shows how to create a positive, empowering legacy that will endure and inspire. You’ll learn that, as a leader, the legacy you live is the legacy you leave. Three Leadership Imperatives: dare to be a person, not a position, dare to connect and dare to drive the dream, will guide you in creating a positive and lasting legacy.
According to Inc (https://www.inc.com/ben-fanning/5-ways-the-best-leaders-leave-unforgettable-legacies.html) most leaders do not leave legacies and they are never mentioned again when they leave an organization. Others leave negative legacies and are usually fired in the process. But others leave powerful legacies hat live on for years, continuing to make positive impacts in staff meetings, presentations, and even at the water cooler.
So, how do you leave a positive, impactful, and memorable legacy?
The Inc article, referenced above, suggests there are five things leaders can be intentional about to affect the legacy they leave:
- Prioritize people over results
- Invest your time and money
- Connect in person
- Control less; empower more
- Model behavior you want to last
Great Leaders start each day by asking themselves “what kind of legacy do I want to leave today?”
Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.