How to Make an Impact that Leaves a Lasting Legacy

During grad school we spent quite a bit of time studying strategic communication … specifically, around articulating vision, strategy and crisis communication.

While I was pursuing my master’s, I had a boss who could not stand discussing strategy or vision. He said things would just work out if you do the right things. That leader did lots of right things, but when he left the organization, the organization crumpled. The leadership had no succession, no vision, and no culture that could stand without that leader in place.

There’s a passage in the book of Proverbs that basically says that without vision not much will work. The people will go their own way and not get to where they want to go.

While I agree with my former boss that doing the right things is vital to organizational health, I also see that a clearly articulated vision provides the direction and reason for everyone to do the right things together.

We’ve seen the pendulum swing the other way as well. My guess is that you’ve seen leaders with clear vision lead like jack wagons as they drive the organization to accomplish the vision without any consideration for anyone who has a question.

We need clear vision rooted in purpose that comes to life through daily leadership aligned with quality core values. That’s how we make a positive impact and leave a legacy worth remembering.

This is an interesting season of life for me. Insight Leadership Group has been my primary income for almost 12 years, and I love what we’ve done, and I love where we are going. Some of the clients we serve met my kids over 6 years ago. We are navigating seasons of life together. It’s quite special.

Today (Monday, August 19, 2024) my oldest son Titus started college classes and Meg, (we just celebrated 21 years) started her doctoral program classes today as well.

Many of you have kids starting school, graduating, getting married, and some of you are starting to prepare for life after retirement. You are considering the impact you are making, and the legacy you want to leave.

What I know is that if all we do is live a good life, we might miss out on living the life we want. Without clear vision we might live lives delivering great work, treating people well, supporting our families, but miss out on what life could look like. While we go through the motions without much to complain about, we feel like something is missing. Don’t ignore that feeling.

On your next flight, long drive or while you are smoking a brisket over the weekend, a valuable exercise would be to consider the legacy you want to leave … you know, the impact you want to make and how that impact will be remembered.

What’s the vision of the relationship you want with your kids?

• Set the goals and strategy.

• Invest the time into what they want to do with you.

• Invest the time into instilling the character you want for them not just keeping the peace during the time you are trying to wind down after work.

What’s the vision of the relationship you want with your spouse?

• Set the goals and strategy.

• Invest the time into speaking their love language.

• Invest the time into dating your spouse and making sure they know you honor them and prioritize them above career and money.

What’s the vision of the relationship you want with your friends?

• Set the goals and strategy.

• Invest the time into spending time hanging out and talking about real life and investing into their lives.

What’s the vision of the impact you want to make on your team?

• Set the goals and strategy.

• Invest the time getting to know them, their dreams, their goals, and then provide coaching and resources to help them get there.

What’s the vision of the impact you want to make on your organization or industry?

• Set the goals and strategy.

• Invest the time, the study, learn, network, collaborate.

Just doing good things won’t get you to where you want to go.

Pursuing the vision for what you want in life while doing the right things during the pursuit will give you a much better shot at leading with purpose, leading from your values, and making an impact to leave a legacy worth remembering.

Why did I write about this today? Because I’ve been wrestling with it. We’ve been doing good things and good things are happening. My son Titus has a vision, and he’s pursuing it. My wife Meg has a vision and, she’s pursuing it through her doctoral work and launching thebeholdcollective.com.

I could keep doing the same thing with Insight for another 20 years and make a meaningful impact. However, we see some gaps we want to address. Addressing those gaps requires vision, strategy and prioritization.

We are laser focused on helping leaders love life at work and love life at home. We know we can’t do that if you aren’t dominating and accomplishing your goals in those areas. We also see a need for a few more tools to help.

We see a gap in a meaningful 360 used to develop team members while building a healthy culture. We just launched our own Insight 360 last week. It’s in the 1.0 version. We are pumped.

We see a gap in leadership programs addressing competencies outside of relationships. We are dreaming about launching our own Executive Leadership Academy during the Spring of 2024. If you are intrigued, shoot me a note and let me know. (michael@insightlg.com)

What burden are you feeling? Address it.

What gap do you see that you are uniquely skilled and passionate about filling? Fill it.

What dream gets you pumped up and makes you nervous? Pursue it.

Don’t be afraid to dream. Don’t be too timid to discuss it. Lead with courage and conviction and let’s love life at work and love life at home. Why only be great at one area of life when you can be great in both?