There's a New Kind of Leader in Town Making Waves and Leaving Legacies
Picture this through the lens of leadership. Just try.
You sit in a dark living room, the only lights coming from your TV. The black and white picture cascades shadows around the room. You rifle around in a bowl for another fistful of popcorn but miss your mouth because you can’t take your eyes off the screen.
Sh*ts about to go down in that tiny little western town where there’s been nothin’ but trouble. At least until that new sheriff rolled up in her fancy spurs, shiny badge, and leather chaps. This new sheriff has got things the others didn’t have— authority, influence, and impact. She put the last sheriff to shame.
The best of the town will follow this new sheriff wherever she wants to go and the worst of them will try to mess with her, taking longer to adapt to a new way of leading. But nothing can throw this new sheriff off course, not even on their worst day. She’s got a destiny to fulfill.
You hear that tribal flute play in the background, the one accompanied by a few tumbleweeds that blow across the sandy main road between the saloon and the sheriff station. People peer out from behind their curtains, waiting for the duel to begin. It was set for sunrise and the sun’s now just about up.
Coming out of the saloon, a little off-kilter, haggard, and stinking of yesterday’s big ideas is The Man. The one who used to be in charge. The one who used to push people around mistaking authority for barking orders, calling all the shots, and putting people in their place.
Across the street, exiting in the sheriff station is Legacy Louisa, sharpest shooter in the west though she’s never had to use their weapon. Her commanding presence, situational wit, assertive communication, emotional intelligence, and inspiring vision take down her opponent before any shot is ever fired.
The Man goes for his gun, flicking his wrist in Legacy Louisa’s direction, but Legacy already has The Man right where they want him. The townspeople have emerged from their hiding places, standing with Louisa, forming a group, a movement. The Man has just the one bullet, the one shot. He can’t take them all down.
The Man is escorted out of town. Legacy Louisa wins the day. The town thrives. Credits roll.
The Old Ways of Leadership
If you haven’t pieced it together, the wild west is our male dominated industries. For women in leadership within those mostly-male spaces, it can feel like navigating a terrain that is harsh, unruly, unfair, and unexpected. They may feel ill-prepared or ill-equipped despite everything they’ve achieved, every accolade they’ve received, and every rung on the ladder they’ve climbed.
The Man is the old ways of leadership and the toxic cultures inside those spaces that are keeping women in male dominated industries from rising to the ranks of leadership. Or, keeping them from excelling in leadership in their own way and on their own terms.
This way is “off-kilter, haggard, and stinking of yesterday’s big ideas.” It’s no longer innovative, sustainable, productive, or healthy. And it puts bottom lines and profits ahead of people. This isn’t the leadership of the present–even though people are still leading this way–and it’s not the leadership of the future.
The reason The Man gets run out of town in this fictitious movie plot I’ve created, is because the new sheriff has rallied the people against him. Because this is the sign of a truly authoritative, influential, and impactful leader. This kind of leader is someone people want to follow.
A New Kind of Leader: the Legacy Leader
This is where our hero enters the story.
The new sheriff, Legacy Louisa, is a new world order and class of leadership. It’s the start of a new era. One that’s conscious, confident, situational, and focuses on both the leader’s development and empowerment as much as their teams’. This new way of leadership puts authority, influence, and impact at its center. This new world leadership order is something I’ve created and call The Legacy Leader Framework.
Today, it’s making its BIG DEBUT. (See another movie reference.) Allow me to introduce you to this framework I’ve been working on the last few months that I’m thrilled to be sharing with you today (and over the course of the remainder of the year via these blog posts.)
The ultimate goal of this framework is to become a Legacy Leader (or Louisa)—someone who leads with unwavering authenticity and profound influence. Now, this status will shift and evolve as you do; it's a continuous journey. You won’t just waltz into ‘town’ as the new Sheriff on the block, influence your people once and then call it a day. You’ll need to evolve as they do and as circumstances do. This is about crafting a legacy that goes beyond titles and accolades; it’s about the indelible mark you leave on your organization and the people within it.
Here, you’re encouraged to continuously recalibrate your approach to leadership, ensuring that your impact is both significant and sustainable. The focus is on creating a leadership legacy that empowers future generations, laying the groundwork for a culture of leadership that values authenticity, inspiration, empowerment, and above all, purpose. At some point, you’ll be moving on, saddling up and riding off into the sunset to your next adventure or horizon, but who will step into your boots when you’re gone? Hopefully some deputy you’ve been training all along.
(Oh, and just so you know, my book coming out early 2025 is essentially about embarking on your legacy leadership journey but with a focus on making imposter syndrome your superpower. You know…because that’s my whole schtick. That said, I do not use the wild west analogy—that’s special to this blog post.)
Exploring the Legacy Leader Framework
Backing up the train a bit, you’ll see on the Y access ‘authority’ and on the X access ‘influence.’ Most of the time, we equate authority and influence to a power struggle. We see authority as being top-down, trying to make people do things. And we see influence as manipulating people to get them to do what we want. (Think of The Man from our Western movie above….) Neither of those is what this is about.
Authority is about being the author of your own journey and influence is about inspiring others and breathing life into people, empowering them in a way they want to work together and with you. When you can bring authority and influence together, you become the type of leader that people want to follow. (The type of leader that will have a massive crowd ready to stand up in a duel prepared to fight for their rights.) When we have both high authority and high influence, then we know we're making an impact–one we can be proud of. We end up leaving a legacy for the people that come behind.
To get to that top right quadrant–The Legacy Leader–you have to know what quadrant you are in right now. What I want to emphasize is that you can find yourself in any of these quadrants at any time, and you're always on a journey. Legacy leadership is about constantly adjusting to become that legacy leader. It's about standing powerfully in your authority and being confident in who you are, which lets you focus less on yourself. This inner game of leadership allows you to focus on others, which is the most important thing as a leader–empowering the team around you.
There’s more to say on the Legacy Leader Framework and I’ll break down each quadrant in the months ahead. For now, I just want you to consider if a Legacy Leader is the type of leader you want to be….If you’re ready to get into fisty cuffs with “The Man” and embrace a new way of leading that could be authentic to you and inspiring to others…If you’re ready to kick up some dust and ride off into the sunset in pursuit of this kind of leadership power…
There could be a new sheriff in town and it could be you.
Stay tuned for next month’s blogpost where I’ll talk about the hidden leader (bottom left quadrant, low in authority and low in influence).
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If you’re ready to step into legacy-making leadership, you’ll need to level up your authority and influence. That’s why my Masterclass is so powerful. Learn to be the kind of leader people naturally want to follow AND be someone who doesn't just lead, but inspires a movement. Join me for this powerful webinar where you will learn three key strategies to be a LEGACY LEADER.
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