Try something for me before you read on.
Think of the best boss you ever had. Got them? Now name three projects they delivered.
Most people stall here. You might get one. You might remember a launch date or a reorg. The rest blurs.
Now tell me how they made you feel.
I bet you answered before I finished the sentence.
Ben Morton, a leadership coach with a military background, closed his conversation with Debra and me on Corey-osity Unleashed with a simple idea. Leaders exist to support and develop people. Everything else is a side effect.
I keep coming back to his point, because it changes what your legacy is made of. Your legacy won't be what you delivered. It'll be how you treated people.
I've Forgotten My Own Release Notes
I've spent decades in software. I've shipped a lot of things. Most of the code I'm proudest of has since been rewritten or switched off. Ask me for the version numbers, the launch dates or the feature lists of most of them and I'll come up blank.
Ask me about the managers along the way and I'll answer in seconds. Who backed me in a hard meeting. Who took credit. Who noticed when something was wrong at home. Those memories haven't faded at all.
I don't think I'm unusual. I think this is how everyone's memory works. And if you lead people, it should change where you spend your effort.
The Quote Everyone Gets Wrong
You've seen the poster. People forget what you said, but they never forget how you made them feel. The internet credits Maya Angelou.
According to Quote Investigator, the earliest known version appeared in a 1971 quote book, attributed to Carl W. Buehner, an official in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Angelou credit turns up decades later, and Quote Investigator calls it unsupported.
I love this. Even the quote about how people remember things got remembered wrong. The words drifted. The author drifted. The feeling stuck around.
The quote proves its own point.
Your Team's Memory Isn't a Spreadsheet
You might hope your team keeps a fair running average of every week they worked for you. Good weeks, bad weeks, all weighted equally.
Human memory doesn't work like this.
In 1993, Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues asked people to put one hand in 14°C water for 60 seconds. In a second trial, the other hand went into the same water for 60 seconds, then stayed in for 30 seconds more while the water warmed to 15°C. Still painful. A bit less so.
Then they asked which trial people wanted to repeat. A significant majority picked the longer one. More total pain, better memory. The researchers concluded the worst moment and the final moment dominate how people judge an experience afterward. Length plays a small role.
Then there's a second finding. Roy Baumeister and his colleagues reviewed research across everyday events, relationships, feedback and learning. They titled the paper Bad Is Stronger Than Good. Bad feedback hits harder than good feedback. Bad impressions form faster and resist correction longer. The authors struggled to find exceptions.
Put the two together and your legacy as a boss looks like this:
- Your worst moment with someone.
- Your last moment with someone.
- Weighted toward the bad.
The roadmap doesn't make the list.
What Bad Memories Cost You
Gallup surveyed 7,272 US adults and found one in two had left a job to get away from their manager at some point in their career.
My own research at Step It Up HR found 99.5% of survey respondents had experienced one or more types of bad boss.
Ninety-nine and a half percent. Nearly every person on your team carries a memory of a boss who got it wrong. They're watching to see whether you'll join the list.
Those people didn't walk out over a missed sprint goal. They walked out over how a meeting went. How their manager handled a mistake. How someone questioned a sick day. Small moments, remembered in high definition.
The Endings Are Happening This Week
I noticed a story trending on Reddit this week. Microsoft offered voluntary exit packages to roughly 60,000 employees, and the threads filled up fast.
I won't pretend to know how those conversations will go inside Microsoft. But I know what each person who takes the offer will carry out the door. Not the quarterly results. The tone of the meeting. Whether anyone looked them in the eye.
The ending is the moment the research says counts most. Most companies hand it to a template.
Exits aren't the only endings, either. Every project ends. Every one-to-one ends. Every bad week ends. Your team files each one away with your name on it.
Lead for the Memory, Not the Metric
I'm not telling you to ignore delivery. Ship the thing. Hit the date. But if you want people to remember you well, put your effort where memory lives.
Plan for the worst day
Your biggest test isn't the all-hands. It's the day someone makes an expensive mistake, or gets bad news from home, or cries in a one-to-one. Decide now how you want to show up on those days. Write it down if it helps. When the day comes, you won't have time to think.
Own the ending
When someone leaves, by choice or not, treat the last conversation as the most important one you'll ever have with them. Thank them for specific things they did. Offer a reference before they ask. Walk them out yourself. Don't delegate the goodbye.
Repair bad moments fast
Bad sticks harder than good. When you snap at someone, a compliment next week won't cancel it out. Go back the same day. Name what you did. Apologize without a "but."
Build a good peak on purpose
Peaks work in both directions. Most people remember one moment when a boss went out on a limb for them. Pick someone on your team this month and give them one of those moments. Put their name in front of the senior leader who decides their next role. Hand them the project they asked for last year. Show up at the event outside work they mentioned once in passing. Small cost to you. A memory they'll keep for decades.
Ask what they'd say about you
Picture someone on your team describing you to their next boss. What's the first sentence out of their mouth? If you don't like the answer, the gap sits in how you treat people, not in your delivery record.
The Sentence You'll Leave Behind
Ben's point holds. You exist to support and develop people. The projects are what you build along the way.
So here's my challenge for you this week.
Write the one sentence you want your team to say about you five years after you leave. Then open your calendar. Does anything on it back the sentence up?
If not, you still have time to change it. Start with the next hard conversation on your list.