Leadership topic - Legacy

Legacy is what is left in the room after you have gone. The title, the project list and the fixes fade. What stays is what the people you led remember about working with you, and what they go on to do because of it. The question is the same at the office and at home: what is your Legacy with the team you are leading right now, and would they tell it the way you would?

U2 turned 50 on September 25, 2026, 50 years to the day after a handful of teenagers answered a notice Larry Mullen Jr had pinned to the board at Mount Temple and met in his family’s kitchen in Artane, Dublin. In March 1978, Dik Evans walked off the stage so the other 4 could become U2, and the same 4 have played together ever since. That same year their manager, Paul McGuinness, had them share everything equally, and he ran their business for 35 years before handing it on in 2013. When Larry needed surgery in 2023, the band played 40 shows in Las Vegas without its founder, and on the 50th he was back on the drums at his old school: a Legacy built to outlast any one person in it.

When I graduated in 1976, I had no idea that in Ireland, a group of 5 became 4, and their Legacy is the group I have written the most about. At my 50th high school reunion, at a school that has since been renamed from Robert E. Lee to … Legacy. Each of them faced real challenges that were much harder than I have had to face… and each of them gave me a chance to really listen to them – deeply – which is what coaching does. A Lasting Legacy leaves what? Come along for 7 days with U2 and find out what yours is leaving…