getAbstract

Home | Knowledge Packs | Travel Packs |
Blog | RSS Feeds | Free Summaries

Your Leadership Legacy

Why Looking Toward the Future Will Make You a Better Leader Today

by Robert M. Galford and Regina Fazio Maruca

Harvard Business Review Press, 2006

Category: Leadership & Management

Get the summary
Your Leadership Legacy

getAbstract rating

Overall (?)

rating 7 (7)

Applicability

rating 7 (7)

Innovation

rating 6 (6)

Style

rating 6 (6)

Level of Expertise (?)

rating 5 (5)

User rating

  (7.0)

In this summary you will learn

  • How to make your legacy a guide to thought, decision and action
  • Why building an intentional legacy can make you a better leader

Why you should read Your Leadership Legacy

This short book offers a core recommendation: think about your legacy long before your retirement. Plan it and begin to create it now. Many executives do not begin to consider their legacies until their working lives are nearly done. This wastes a great opportunity. By thinking ahead and planning for the sort of legacy you would like to leave, you can make it much more probable that the legacy you actually do leave will match your aspirations. Legacies do not happen accidentally. They are the products of years of effort. getAbstract recommends this framework for considering your legacy. Authors Robert M. Galford and Regina Fazio Maruca include a structured series of action steps to help you get started on the path of legacy creation, and they provide numerous entertaining and illustrative anecdotes to help point the way. They don’t dwell on asking if a manager who is preoccupied with legacy creation is hampered in making risky decisions, and they don’t examine the mini-fad in legacy thinking. However, they do clearly tell you how to look forward, act with deliberation, and pick yourself up and start again if one legacy gets destroyed and you must build another.

About the Authors

Robert M. Galford is a managing partner of the Center for Executive Development in Boston, and co-author of The Trusted Leader and The Trusted Advisor. Regina Fazio Maruca is a former senior editor at Harvard Business Review.

Comment on this summary

Be the first to write a comment! Sign in to share your opinion