Creating a legacy at work
There is a new trend for people in their forties who want to leave a significant legacy in their workplace
An interesting new trend is emerging from the coaching I’m doing with two clients in their 40’s.
Without realising it is a real thing I had already coined the term “legacy coaching” to describe it. It is not as it might sound in helping people plan what they want to leave their loved ones when they pass but is about coaching clients to think about and execute their individual legacy within an organisation. It is connected to personal brand and reputation. It has been defined as “helping individuals or leaders create a meaningful, long-lasting impact, …. tied to personal values and goals”.
Traditionally these types of conversations take place with people seeking retirement and looking to “put something back into society”. The difference is these individuals are in their early 40s, are embedded in organisations and doing great work for them.
Originally coming to me for career change coaching both clients have decided to stay put in their current roles, and with their current organisations, for life style reasons. Rather than coast they want to do their jobs well, but also make an impact in the role without having to make the step up the career ladder. They want to create and leave a legacy.
One works in a male-dominated engineering company and has set the goal of getting more women into the business. The coaching will be around how she does this, who she can enlist to support her and how she can promote the project more widely, with the goal of landing a slot on BBC Women’s Hour to promote her women in engineering scheme.
The other client would like to continue doing his job very well but is not ready to make the leap out of or up his organisation and is instead seeking to leverage his expertise to raise his profile and promote his expertise for the benefit of other organisations and individuals. The coaching around this is supporting him to write a White Paper and develop further his brand as a knowledge expert.
I can draw to a limited extent from scholarly research for the rationale behind this growing workplace behaviour, but nothing currently quite encapsulates coaching for a legacy.
Vocational careers, life stage and development models as well as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs have some touch points. Maslow, for example, talked about a pyramid of motivational needs from physiological, to safety, to social, self-esteem, and finally at the top of the pyramid, self-actualization. This is where our core desires have been met, and we now have the time and space to become the most complete and authentic versions of ourselves. Maslow (1943) described this level as the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the best that we can be.
Fast forward 80 years and perhaps the nascent sustainable careers literature (De Vos et al 2020) is the most relevant. Sustainable careers can be described in terms of happiness, health, and productivity. Researchers describe a sustainable career as one that is aligned with interests, strengths, and values, and offers ongoing learning and renewal. Ultimately, building a sustainable career will give you the ability to maintain several aspects of your career and life over the long-term.
In the US coaches are already devising models to support individuals and leaders to create a meaningful impact. It is early days for me as the work is just beginning with these clients, but it feels modern, forward thinking, and an important trend to watch out for. The only caveat is this cannot be another add-on, clever tool to hollowly build reputation, it needs to be authentically deep-rooted and aligned to values and interests.