Legacy Leadership During the Crisis

Jay Newman, PhD, Founding Partner Culture By Choice

It’s easy to be a Legacy Leader when you’re sailing on calm seas. It’s quite another thing to maintain that Legacy style when the storm is raging. But, that is precisely when the Legacy Leadership style is needed most. So how do you do it? How do you power through when the chips are down? The secret is in the preparation.

Navy seals have a saying. When the crisis hits, you will not rise to the occasion, you will sink to your level of training; so train well! This idea fits very well with the concept of Legacy Leadership. We all have at least 2 ways we approach any task we face. There’s our natural approach and then there’s the approach that is a product of our training, learning, and experience. When the stress level is high, our gut tells us to do things the way we feel most comfortable. This approach often ignores all we’ve learned and all the training we’ve received. The Legacy Leader must fight the urge to give in to the strong natural desire to do things the way our gut tells us to.

If we are going to really lead based on the organization’s core values and principles, we must put aside our personal preferences. We must make sure that what we do is fully aligned with what’s in the best interest of the organization. When we let our personalities take over, we run the risk of losing the greater good in our own desires and expectations. Stress is a dangerous thing. It can make us forget our real purpose. So it is during these high pressure situations that we must return to our training and make sure we stay true to the cause.

If you want to be a Legacy Leader, you will need to make sure that you are fully aware of your natural and adapted styles. Know what you will want to do and make sure you can control those urges. If you leave it all to chance you will have huge temptations and those can over power your logic and rationality. Train yourself for these crises before they arise. Be intentional in your preparation and you will be far more capable of staying on course.

That’s the beauty of Legacy Leadership. No matter what a leader’s natural inclinations are, the Legacy Leader can do what’s in the best interest of the organization and the Legacy Leader knows that no organization exists without people. Those people must perform if the organization is to succeed. Committed, dedicated, focused people have a higher rate of success than do unengaged, distracted people. It’s about getting important things done, those things critical to the mission of the organization. The Legacy Leader understands the triple bottom line; the people bottom line, the place bottom line, and the profit bottom line. Help all the people succeed that you possibly can! Help the place where you are be the best place it can be! And, make all the profit you can! Doing each of these without jeopardizing either of the other two. It’s a three legged stool that requires an equal strength for each leg if the stool is to be functional.