Your legacy is what you do every day. Your legacy is every life you’ve touched, every person whose life was either moved or not.” — Maya Angelou
While it seems like real leadership is languishing around the world, it is clearly flourishing in our small community in Northern Michigan. We even count Pete Buttigieg and Debbie Stabenow as neighbors—leaders who have left real legacies.
Last week, an equally potent but less renowned leader, Glen Chown, celebrated his 35th anniversary as Executive Director of the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC). What a legacy. I have had the pleasure of working with Glen for the last decade and have written several posts highlighting GRTLC’s accomplishments under his leadership, e.g. building collaborative communities and leading with grace. This post will focus on the legacy Glen has built over his career based on three critical criteria: people, culture, and character; and how he has distinguished himself from leaders who may have made bigger headlines but clearly have not earned bigger halos.
For a little context, the Grand Traverse Region is a treasure chest of natural beauty, peppered with charming towns adjacent to Lake Michigan. Due to its geographic location in Northern Michigan, the area has become a jewel of the Great Lakes – which contain 20% of the world’s fresh water.
As the world continues to warm, the Region’s moderate temperatures and unlimited water sources have made the whole area a climate refuge. Thus, all of the fertile land in the Region has become a prime target for developers. As a result, land stewardship has become increasingly important to the health of the region’s natural resources.
In my mind, there has never been a more critical need for local leadership to meet the moment. And yet, history is filled with the folly of self-aggrandizing leaders who have missed moments like these by being more interested in personal glory than meaningful purpose. From Pharaohs who exhausted empires to build tombs, to modern leaders who plaster their names across towers and institutional facades, the human impulse to carve oneself into the physical landscape instead of preserve the landscape itself is ancient and persistent.
Real legacy is never made of monuments and mythology, which eventually crumble, fade, or become symbols of historical warning. An authentic legacy rests on more invisible and qualitative measures. In this post, I want to contrast Glen Chown with leaders who lay claim to great legacies but who, in fact, act in ways that ensure disgrace. I want to share how Glen has exemplified all three criteria required for real leadership legacy: people, culture, and character.
The People Metric
A toxic or self-centered leader measures success by subjugation or domination—how many people were defeated, how many sycophants were gathered, and how much power was concentrated at the top. I’m sure many leaders come to mind when you think of this criterion.
A real legacy is measured by the quality of human capital the leader is able to build. It asks a simple question: Are the people who followed this leader better off, more capable, and more autonomous than they were before? Real leaders don’t create dependent followers; they cultivate interdependent successors. They leave behind an environment where people feel safe to speak truth to power, to innovate, and to fail without fear of retribution.
A true leader’s highest achievement is a network of empowered individuals who carry forward a shared mission long after the leader has left the stage.
Glen has built, and continues to build, invaluable human capital. The 25 members of GRTLC boards consist of thoughtful, supportive, and deeply capable experts in multiple fields. The 38-person staff is composed of dedicated, disciplined professionals with a passion for the GTRLC vision, values, mission, and goals. The hundreds of volunteers throughout the region unselfishly give their time and talent to dozens of projects under development. And thousands of generous donors support the organization financially.
The Culture Metric
When leadership is rooted in self-idolization, the institution becomes a mirror for the leader’s ego. The moment they exit, the structure fractures because it was built on personal whims rather than enduring principles. Narcissistic leaders often create cruel, careless, and chaotic cultures that destroy trust, undermine innovation, and suck hope out of your soul. You can surely think of many leaders who fit this criterion.
Real accomplishment is reflected in the enduring culture that thrives even in the leader’s absence. True legacy codifies values into systems. It ensures that fairness, excellence, and accountability are baked into the daily operations of the community. The ultimate test of a leader’s legacy is how the organization behaves when no one is watching, and when the original architect is gone. If the culture remains intact, the legacy is real. Unwritten rules often have more power than written ones.
Fortunately, I expect Glen will continue to lead GTRLC for many more years. I’m confident, however, that if and when he decides to retire, the culture will not only survive but continue to evolve in a positive direction. At GTRLC, the culture is one of calm competence that leads to abundant hope, brilliant innovation, and deep trust.
The Character Metric:
There is a profound difference between the theater of strength and the reality of courage. Bullying and knavery are masks worn to hide a fear of inadequacy; they require zero internal character. You won’t have any trouble identifying leaders who have no moral compass or grounding—who are performative but non-performing.
In contrast, the legacy of a real leader is anchored in intellectual and emotional humility.As Jim Collins famously noted in his research on enduring organizations, great leaders look out the window to apportion credit for success (to their people and good fortune) but look in the mirror to assign responsibility when things go wrong. Real courage is the willingness to make a costly, unpopular decision because it is right, even if it damages the leader’s immediate standing or comfort. Where a transactional leader sacrifices others for their pleasure, a real leader absorbs pain so that their people don’t have to – they don’t confuse humility with humiliation.
Glen’s character can best be described as one of unquestionable integrity, high ethical standards, authentic humility, and astounding courage. In the 35 years of his leadership, the board, staff, volunteers, and donors have preserved over 50,000 acres of land, 160 miles of pristine shoreline, and 125 miles of winding trails through some of the most beautiful natural landscapes in the world. Those accomplishments required humility, courage, and trust among an appreciative donor base.
In short, real legacies are built on accomplishment vs. self-aggrandizement. The primary goals of legacy leaders are people development and cultural alignment vs. name and image inflation. Real legacies are built on common purpose and shared values vs. convenience and complicity The results of real legacies are resilient cultures and new generations of leaders vs. monuments and slogans. History describes the lasting impact of legacy leaders; it decries the erosion of institutions and values by lunatic leaders. In his column on June 19th, Tom Friedman describes the legacy of the current US President. It’s not pretty.
Ultimately, the legacy of self-aggrandizement begins and ends with the individual’s ego, leaving behind a wake of cynicism, fractured trust, and superficial markers of success.
A real leader understands that they are merely a temporary steward of a larger story. Their accomplishment is not found in a statue erected in their honor but in the quiet, resilient strength of the community they helped build, the integrity of the institutions they protected, and the human potential they unlocked. Real legacy isn’t something you leave for people; it is something you leave in them. Glen has been that leader for 35 years in our community.
I feel so lucky to be able to work with amazing leaders in the Grand Traverse Region, and I’m grateful that we still have leaders on a national level who continue to inspire us. Three speeches yesterday (by Barack and Michelle Obama, and Mamdani) also renewed my faith that change is possible.
I’m hoping that I will be writing another testimony to Glen’s leadership for his 40th anniversary with the GTRLC. I’m hoping the community will recognize the important work of the Conservancy as well as Glen’s stellar leadership. Finally, I’m hoping more leaders will focus on the human, cultural, and character metrics that underlie all sustainable results. May it be so.
