Leadership Wednesday 28 - Elizabeth Edwards and Legacy

Sadly, Elizabeth Edwards died yesterday. Elizabeth Edwards was the estranged wife of former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards. In her death, Elizabeth Edwards is being remembered for her commitment to social justice and her resilience in facing life’s struggles. In recent years, those struggles have included cancer and a cheating husband. Looking back across Elizabeth Edward’s life, it’s easy to see that her legacy will be different from that of her husband, John Edwards.

In 2008 I really liked John Edwards. I believed in his message of social reform and meeting the needs of the less fortunate. For once in my life I had emotionally invested in a political candidate; for the first time I had a dog in the fight. When Edwards didn’t move past the primaries I still held him in esteem as someone who cared about the things I cared about and wanted to enact some change. That all changed, though, when he confessed to having an affair while his wife battled cancer. My view of him degraded further when he confessed that he had fathered a child with his mistress, a child he had initially denied and disowned.

In this couple we have the opportunity to see how our actions will affect our legacy. Elizabeth Edwards will be remembered as an extraordinary woman, full of grace even in the midst of difficult circumstances. John Edwards, for all the good he’s accomplished and might accomplish in the future, will have a difficult time shaking his reputation as a liar and philanderer.

The scary thing is that our legacies can be defined by a single mistake. Leaders attempt to do good and make the world a better place but all of that hard work can come crashing down because of one poor decision. Moral failures hurt our ability to influence others and enact the changes that we would like to see in the world. Because of this fact, I view my life as standing on the edge of a knife; I know that any poor decision, any moral failure, could tip me over and unravel everything I’ve worked so hard to attain.

Our choices influence how we will be remembered. And even though we won’t be there to hear our own eulogies, we should want them to be good, full of reflections on the positive impacts we made in this world. Those positive impacts will be a lot easier to recognize when there aren’t any poor choices or moral failures covering them up.

What value do you see in thinking about your legacy?