A question has been sitting with me for some time.
Is staying in a leadership role for a long time evidence of good leadership?
At first glance, it seems like a straightforward question. Organisations do not usually retain leaders indefinitely if they are completely ineffective, so longevity must tell us something.
Yet the more I reflect on it, the less convinced I become that longevity tells us very much on its own.
As a football fan, my mind drifted there first.
Imagine a manager who stays at the same club for ten years. The club survives comfortably enough, but never really progresses. There are no major trophies, no obvious improvement in the quality of players and no lasting sense that the club has become stronger because of their leadership. Would longevity alone convince us they had been successful? Probably not.
Most of us would immediately start looking for evidence. We would want to understand where the club started, what resources were available, whether expectations had been exceeded, whether players developed and what had been left behind. In other words, we would ask better questions. Yet in organisations we often seem willing to rely on simpler measures.
- Length of service
- Seniority
- Promotion
- Reputation
- Even results
The challenge is that each of these measures tells us something, but none tells us everything.
Intention and impact
Earlier in my career, I worked with a leader who genuinely believed they were a good manager. As I prepared to leave the organisation, they spoke passionately about how hard they worked for their people, how much support they provided behind the scenes and how deeply they cared about those they led.
I believed they meant it.
The difficulty was that many members of the team experienced the leadership very differently.
That conversation stayed with me because it surfaced a distinction I have returned to many times since.
Leadership is not experienced through intention alone. Leadership is experienced through impact.
The intention may be good. The impact may still be damaging.
Equally, a leader can deliver strong organisational results whilst leaving behind exhausted teams, damaged relationships, low trust and an environment people simply endure rather than enjoy. On the other hand, a leader can be well liked and popular whilst consistently failing to deliver the organisation’s purpose. Neither feels like the complete picture.
The more years I spend observing leadership, the more I find myself returning to a simple question: What is the actual evidence of good leadership?
What people remembered
Over recent months, that question has become even more interesting to me. As I prepared to leave the Greater London Authority after seven and a half years, I received a large number of messages from colleagues, partners and stakeholders. Reading through them was both humbling and thought-provoking.
What struck me was not the kindness itself, but the patterns that emerged. Again and again, similar themes appeared.
- Support
- Challenge
- Trust
- Opportunity
- Growth
- Visibility
- Belief
- Development
Many people remembered conversations I had long forgotten. Others remembered opportunities that seemed relatively small at the time. Some remembered encouragement. Others remembered challenge. Several remembered being trusted with something before they felt fully ready.
What fascinated me was that people rarely remembered the things we often associate with leadership.
They did not talk about governance structures, reporting arrangements, programme boards or organisational charts. They remembered experiences.
That observation forced me to think more carefully about what leadership actually leaves behind.
Four places leadership leaves evidence
Increasingly, I think leadership leaves evidence in four places.
The first is performance.
Did the work improve? Did the mission advance? Did meaningful outcomes get delivered?
Leadership exists in service of a purpose and results matter.
The second is people.
Who became more capable, confident or prepared because they experienced the leadership? Who grew? Who developed? Who moved further than they might otherwise have done?
One of the strongest signs of leadership is that other people become more because they encountered it.
The third is practice.
How were those results achieved? Were people treated with dignity? Was challenge balanced with humanity? Were difficult decisions handled well? Was the leadership worth reproducing?
Results matter, but so does the path taken to achieve them.
The fourth is permanence.
What remained? Were stronger systems created? Were capable successors developed? Did healthier relationships endure? Was the organisation less dependent on the leader rather than more?
This final question increasingly fascinates me because it shifts the focus from success to legacy. The older I get, the more convinced I become that leadership should leave evidence:
- Evidence in what changed.
- Evidence in who grew.
- Evidence in how it was done.
- Evidence in what remained.
Who am I becoming?
Interestingly, this reflection connects closely to a question that sits at the heart of Becoming More:
Who am I becoming?
More recently, another question has begun to sit alongside it:
What evidence does my leadership leave behind in the lives of other people?
I suspect those two questions belong together. Because becoming is not only something we experience ourselves. It is also something that leaves traces in other people. And perhaps that is one of the most meaningful forms of leadership evidence we can ever hope to leave behind.
