Description

Leadership-as-a-Partnership: Building a Lasting Legacy

People today are looking for a calling, a mission in life that gives them the ability to create new meaning from their actions and the actions of others with whom they have partnered. A legacy does this very thing.

A legacy in the context of leadership refers to actions and achievements by which someone will be remembered long after they have gone, proving that their achievements continue to benefit humanity.

Leadership-as-a-partnership is about giving opportunity to team members to find significance through great achievements.

Partnering, by definition, assumes a relationship. One cannot partner alone. In order to build a lasting legacy, leaders of any organisation are continually experiencing multiple relationships and multiple partnerships that go up, down and sideways for the success of the organisation they lead.

In the latter part of the Twentieth Century, there was a major shift in the leader-follower relationship that greatly affected the way in which leaders influenced followers. The leader is no longer seen as the boss, one from whom you take orders but as a partner whom you follow. Therefore, one of the greatest challenges facing any leader in the Twenty-first Century is the ability to develop effective partnerships with co-workers. The long-term success of any organisation or project depends upon this ability. Such a partnership is developed as leaders bring co-workers into their confidence and allow them to develop their individual expertise to effectively manage and lead their part of the organisation.

Why? Because contributing to a lasting legacy gives us and those with whom we have partnered a call or mission in life. People gain a tremendous sense of gratification and identity as they now have a valuable contribution to offer others in the way of money, knowledge and experience.