Everyone should aspire to leave a legacy at their workplace no matter how little it is. No one aspires to work for a lifetime so leaving something significant to work for you even when you leave your workplace is indeed necessary. In this case, we mean a positive legacy because you can also leave negative legacies so you have to be careful to know which you will be leaving. There are various legacies you can leave at your workplace ranging from being the one known to lift others up to creating social change through corporate social responsibility to championing leadership programs and to providing effective ways to doing office work easily, setting this legacy largely depends on you so let’s run through how you can pinpoint what legacy you would like to leave.
Before setting any legacies,
- Do your research: This involves searching through the workplace and seeing what is lacking and how you can implement something that works. This also involves asking yourself these important questions: what do I want to be remembered for, what do I want my clients/customers to remember me by, what would I like to pass on to the next generation, where can I start from and what systems need to be in place to make it happen. Once you have figured out the answers to these, you have successfully passed level 1.
- Figure out your passion: By finding your passion in a particular cause, it will be easy to craft out a legacy that will not frustrate you when you begin pursuing it. Your passion for this cause should be something that affects everyone and can influence the lives of your colleagues positively.
- Put others first: It is called a legacy for a reason because it has to be something that affects others and will be left for others so you have to think of others first when you are figuring out what legacy you want to set in motion.
- A Model Behaviour: You need to consider the fact that you might have the idea for a strong legacy or you have already set one in motion but your behaviour is not one to write home about then your legacy becomes almost redundant. The news of your behaviour might just overshadow the great impact you are making so it is best to have a model behaviour to support your great agenda
- Think of the long run: Figure out a plan that would stand the test of time and would have colleagues singing your praise even when you are not there. This can be in the form of introducing a new culture to the office like gifting or empowerment or teaching new recruits the ropes during their orientation or simply just being the beacon of light everyone needs to get the work done. You can think bigger and introduce a corporate social responsibility plan as long as it is something that the workplace can uphold even when you are absent.
Choosing to leave a legacy at your workplace should not be a tedious task because it can be the simplest things that you do that gets you remembered for life but make sure it is deliberate and it is unique to you. LIFE simply means Leaving an Impact for Eternity according to Burna Boy and it should be something we should all key into. What legacy will you set or have you set in your workplace? Let us know in the comments section and if you have any contributions as well, we would be glad to receive them.
