Cari’s Corner: Live Your Leadership Legacy Today to Ensure It’s True Tomorrow
I’ve been thinking lately about my leadership legacy. How often do you consider how you want your leadership to be remembered? Most assuredly, our time, treasure, and talent committed to 100 Women Strong will be part of it. Every day we leave reputational crumbs along our path ultimately to reach one eventual destination, our legacy. With purposeful thought and action, you can begin to shape your legacy today to safeguard its truth for tomorrow.
Legacy, especially within a leadership context, is what you inspire people and organizations to do. So, how do you preserve your impact and influence, so it sticks around long after you’re gone? The key is gaining clarity on what you want your legacy to be and then living it every day. Not only will this ensure that you finish well, but it will also give you purpose and help to shape goals and priorities along the way.
Here’s your legacy checklist.
✔Define your leadership legacy. This is as simple as writing down exactly how you want people to describe you. What are your key attributes? What impact have you had on the lives of others, organizations, communities, the world? What are your values and are they evident by how you live and operate? Remember, legacy is your destination and getting there is a journey.
✔Model your leadership legacy. Once you define your legacy, then it’s important that you honestly assess where you are today. This step will put your self-awareness to the test. Share your legacy ambition with a few trusted people who know you well and will provide honest input. Ask these loving critics what gaps exist and solicit suggestions for steps you can take to make headway toward the goal. Progress will come over time as you are focused and deliberate in your actions.
✔Align your leadership legacy. Now that you are working a plan, it’s important to understand if your goals and priorities are contributing to your legacy narrative in the way you intend. Are you hitting the mark, or are there things you need to adjust in the spirit of continuous improvement? Here’s where you want to establish regular check-ins with others to assess how you’re doing. Making modifications, as necessary, will help you align your actions with the target and accelerate your progress.
✔Engage others in your leadership legacy. The final step is to inspire others who share your vision. Who are your advocates? Those that will carry your message and uphold your values? How can you influence them to in turn influence others? At the end of the day, it’s people who will determine if your legacy lives on. Those whose fingerprints are part of its making are, after all, building their legacy, too.
With a clear picture of where you’re going, over time, you will begin to live your leadership legacy. It becomes who you are. Stay vigilant. Surround yourself with others who will hold you accountable. Check yourself to make sure you’re on the straight path. And most of all enjoy the ride! Your leadership legacy is the ultimate gift, to yourself, to those around you and to the communities (like 100 Women Strong) that you serve.
CARI H. COATS is a business advisor, leadership strategist, executive coach, author, and speaker, leveraging her extensive executive experience and 25-plus year track record helping senior leaders and teams. Coats is co-founder & managing partner of Accendo Leadership Advisory Group. Accendo is a leadership strategy firm offering advisory services for the full spectrum of leadership development, including executive and transitional leadership coaching, high performance executive team development, professional development for high potential women leaders, and next generation succession coaching for family business leaders. Coats is a certified executive coach in the Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered methodology and works primarily with executive-level leaders and teams, and a member of the Forbes Coaches Council. Coats is also the co-author of “Women: Get Promoted Now! 4 Must-Have Ingredients to Accelerate Your Career.” Coats is a graduate of the Global Executive MBA program at Duke University. Coats received her B.A. in Communications-Radio/TV from the University of Central Florida. She was named the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year at UCF and served on the UCF Foundation board for more than a decade. Coats resides in Orlando, FL with her husband, Russell Coats. They have 26-year-old twin daughters, Kate and Maddie.
100 WOMEN STRONG 100 Women Strong is a giving circle at Central Florida Foundation. As part of Central Florida Foundation’s Women in Philanthropy initiative, the giving circle provides an exciting opportunity for women to join together in an engaging and meaningful way to give back to the Central Florida community. Each member makes an annual tax-deductible gift of $1,100 to a pooled fund and together they research and identify where their grants will go in the community to make an impact. Since 2006, 100 Women Strong has invested more than $882,000 in local initiatives to improve the lives of women and children. For more information, learn more here.
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