“The responsibility of each generation is not to please our predecessors – it’s to improve conditions for our successors.” – Adam Grant
A few weeks ago, I was working with a leader who faced a frustrating, but not unusual problem. He was dealing with what I’ll call an Alumni Leader. The individual who had been the leader for years prior was still hanging around, trying to “help” the current leader in his role.
The biggest frustration for the current leader was that he felt as though he couldn’t make any decisions that might upset the Alumni Leader. He didn’t feel like he could discontinue a product line because the Alumni Leader had started it. He didn’t feel like he could switch marketing providers because the Alumni Leader had a long-term relationship with their current marketing firm. And so on.
How many leaders deal with something like that? Maybe it’s a family business and Mom or Dad or Grandpa or Grandma are still hanging around, officially retired but not really. Maybe the Alumni Leader was some kind of rock star and the board of directors still goes to her for guidance, sometimes to the point of undermining the current leader’s ideas. Regardless of the specifics, it’s a huge challenge.
Our job as leaders is to do what we think is best for the future of the business, its people, its customers, its community, and whatever other stakeholders there may be. If we think the best thing for the business is to move to a new location, or start a new niche, or terminate someone who isn’t performing, or whatever – we have to be able to do that in the name of the growth and long-term health of the company.
We can’t be worried about what someone who was a big deal 5 or 10 or 20 years ago is thinking about what we do. And, if that’s the situation we find ourselves in, we have to think seriously about whether that’s the right place for us.
Look around you. Are you leading for the future? Or catering to the past? One option leads to potential success, the other to nothing but frustration. You choose.
