Leaving a legacy is one of the most powerful things a leader can do in his or her career and life. Legacies enable leaders to influence the future viability of an organization and its culture, even after they are gone.
Keeping your legacy in mind is also a good strategy to ensure you are thinking from a long-term perspective and resisting the urge to make decisions that are narrowly focused on short-term gain, according to an article in the Harvard Business Review by Kimberly Wade-Benzoni, PhD, an associate professor of Business Administration and Center of Leadership and Ethics Scholar at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in Durham, N.C.
Here are four ways to keep your legacy in mind while executing on everyday decisions, according to Dr. Wade-Benzoni.
1. Consider how your predecessors' actions affected you. While you can't always reciprocate the givings of prior generations, you can pay it forward by keeping their positive deeds in mind and behaving similarly toward the next generation of leaders in the organization.
2. Identify the burdens and benefits associated with your decisions. People are more concerned with avoiding leaving a negative legacy in which their successors are saddled with burdens than creating a positive one. Identifying the burdensome aspects of certain long-term decisions can help leaders recognize how negative legacies can be created from such decisions, according to the report.
3. Consider the relationship between power and responsibility. Research shows that having power in limited timeframes tends to make people more self-interested. However, studies on intergenerational decisions involving extended periods of time show that having power can motivate decision makers to be more concerned with interests of others in the future. Ultimately, when it's clear that one's decisions will influence the outcomes for those who are powerless and voiceless, one is far more likely to consider the moral implications of those decisions.
4. Keep your mortality in mind. Research shows that reminding people of their own inevitable death motivates them to contemplate their legacy and act in ways that benefit future generations, which effectively improves the quality of their long-term decisions. People feel better about death knowing that they will have a positive impact on others, even when they are no longer around.