You’ve earned your position. Now let’s make sure you lead like it.
Retail leadership isn’t what it used to be. And if you’ve been doing this long enough, neither are you.
The job gets bigger. The expectations get louder. But the guidance? That usually disappears right when you need it most.
And most leaders are left figuring things out quietly while still being expected to have all the answers.
This podcast is for experienced retail leaders who’ve already proven themselves and know there has to be a better way to lead than just carrying more.
I’m Steve Worthy. I’ve spent over 30 years working across retail — from boardrooms to regional and district markets, through restructures, reinventions, and the parts of leadership no one really prepares you for.
I’ve coached thousands of retail leaders and advised teams that support the retail industry, and this podcast exists for one reason:
To give you the perspective and clarity most leaders are expected to figure out on their own.
Now let’s make sure how you lead actually matches it.
What are you doing in your life right now to leave a lasting legacy?
As retail leaders, we are often so focused on our daily responsibilities that we fail to consider the long-term impact we may have on others, particularly our team.
Listen in and learn as we talk about the Law of Legacy!
Key Highlights:
[00:01] How your legacy is being developed and curated daily
[02:05] Do you need to be liked as a leader?
[05:18] What Steve wanted to leave as a legacy
[08:12] The importance of having a strong team
[10:02] The power of being present in your life
[11:21] Your legacy is not just about you; it’s supposed to be bigger than you.
[12:17] Why you have to protect your personal life as a leader
[14:17] How do you start to think about your legacy?
Notable Quotes:
Your legacy is being developed and curated daily by your actions, your intentions, your relationships, your achievements, your failures, and those you lead.
I wanted to be able to unashamedly speak to retail leaders about where they currently are in their journey.
To be able to walk into a store, feel the energy, and also to see things that you possibly put into place that are still operating is such a cool feeling. That is a legacy feeling!
A lot of times, we think about legacy as meaning us and who we are. But to be very honest, your legacy is bigger than you.
When you start to think about your legacy, you have to make sure that your personal life, and your personal legacy, match, to some degree, your professional legacy.
The best leaders that I know they're very similar in how they lead themselves personally and how they lead their teams.
In retail, it's it's hard to look past a given day, a week or a month, let alone think about the end of your career, or or even think about this big word that we often talk about legacy. Right? We hear it talked about so much. But here's the thing, and I need you to understand this, because then tomorrow you should start to look at everything that you do, everything that you are, and the people that you connect with differently. Because here is the truth. I know this from my experience, from talking to other people, um, and it is it is just it is just the truth. Your legacy is being developed and curated daily by your actions, your intentions, your relationships, your achievements, your failures, and those you lead. Once again, your legacy is being developed and curated daily, not over a month, but daily through your interactions with your team, your intentions, how you handle a problem, how you communicate effectively, your relationships. How important do you uh on the on the level of connecting with people, how important do you put relationships on that uh on that ladder? Achievements. Are your achievements more important than your team's achievements? Failures. Are you learning from your failures? Are you evaluating your failures? Is your team doing the same thing? And then those you lead, do they like being led by you? Do they like you? They don't have to necessarily like you all the time. Right? And I know people say this, well, I'm a leader, I don't need to be liked, I just need to be respected. Bull crap. Bullcrap. I'm gonna call bull on that. I'm just gonna call bull on that. There is something inside of us as human beings that want people that we lead to some degree to like us as a person and for maybe what we stand for. I'm gonna let you know that right now. If you if you are thinking that you are this um this soul individual that says, I don't care what people think about me, you're lying to yourself. You are lying to yourself. Because you know why? Because I used to say the exact same thing. I used to say, I don't care what people think about me, they can say whatever they want to say, yada yada yada. And I realized over time in my leadership, as I started to grow in my leadership, that I did care. Not to the point where it it it moved me to make different decisions. I did care because you know what? I cared for them. Right? You can't you you can't be in this retail game for any amount of time, you know, five, ten, twelve, twenty, almost thirty years, and not tell me that you don't care about people. That you don't uh in some way, shape, or form, care about your team. You can you can put on the brave face all you want when you walk into a store, but there is a major part of you that cares about your team's well-being, right? About their family, their future, and their finances. You care about those things. So the this last law of legacy. I don't have a massive like script that I wanted to talk about with this law of legacy. I really just wanted to have a conversation with you because this is the last law of the 21 laws around leadership, but we we moved them and geared them, of course, towards um you know, towards towards retail leadership. You you have to understand legacy is something that you are developing in that when you see, when they see you, they understand um how important you were to their life in their lives.
SPEAKER_01
Welcome to Retail Leadership, hosted by Steve Worthy. We understand that retail is a fast-paced industry, and that a leader's decision will impact everyone every day all over the world. Listen, it's time for you to stop being the leader others think you should be, and time for you to become the leader you have always wanted to be. Are you ready? Let's go.
SPEAKER_02
During my 26 years, um I can say that I have I felt that I have left a decent legacy. I have felt that I have been able to touch the lives of a lot of people. Here's the other thing that a lot of people have said too, and I I and I don't know if I agree with this, but I probably probably could have that I could have um stayed, you know, another five, six years um you know, in in retail and done more done more things. And I probably could have. You know, I probably I probably could have with the with the right company in the right situation. But I think what I realized was that over time I wanted to do exactly this, not just the podcast, but I wanted to be able to unashamedly speak to retail leaders um about where they currently are in their journey. And also to give a sort of behind the scenes, you're not gonna learn this um, you know, in your books in, you know, uh in retail. You're not gonna learn this stuff in your SOPs. You're not gonna honestly you're not gonna learn this stuff when you go to HQ for some of your leadership training. They'll give you maybe the the the um the high-level version, but they're not gonna get into the the the nitty-gritty like I have have and will be. I I feel that as a retail leader, we have been kind of marginalized, that we have been placed when you start to think about the annals of of leadership, there may be one or two sort of retail, you know, CEOs and things like that that are probably placed in high regard. But I am more concerned with the field leaders, the senior vice presidents and down regional, district, and store store leaders who on a daily basis lead millions and billions of dollars, and they don't necessarily receive this the respect that they should. They don't receive the I guess the um the praise of what a retail leader does each and every day for themselves, for their teams, for their families, and for their team's families, for their future, and also for their team's future.
SPEAKER_00
You're listening to retail leadership with Steve Worthy.
SPEAKER_02
On a daily basis, you are touching and connecting with so many people that it is very hard sometimes for you to know when your day begins and when your day ends. Because as a as a retail leader, you are on stage, you know, even when you're not on stage, soon as you even when you leave for the day, and you leave you left your last store, you're flying home, and you're in the car and you're driving home, and boom, guess what? You get a call that there was a shooting, you know, in in your market. And, you know, or uh in my case, there were many shootings and and also a and riots in several of my markets, and so you know, you think you're off and you're not, and you immediately have to go back on stage and connect with your team and make sure everybody's okay. I have been very fortunate. I've been very fortunate to be able to develop and cultivate teams that one have my back. How many of you, you know, as retail leaders can say that your teams, your team, your current team, you know, maybe your previous team, but your current team, that they have your back. They have your back in such a way that they want to help you build a legacy. They want to help you win. They want to help you get promoted. Even though, even though if that means losing you, even if that means losing you, they want to help you get promoted. And here's why is that they know that one, you are meant for something bigger than this, than your current role, and that two, when you get to the next level, you are going to impact so many more people, and the explosive growth that we just spoke about is going to be present in your life. That's the those are the legacy moments, those are the daily intentional actions that you need to think about, that you need to see and hopefully that you're taking so that you can build a legacy. When you when you walk into a store, I can walk into a store that I haven't been in in years, you know, 15 years, and if some of the same people that are that are there are there and they see me, guess what? They run over to me and we have a good chat and a good conversation about X, Y, and Z, and we move on. And they, you know, um and they want to know about the podcast, they want to know about the coaching. Um, I've actually had several people sign up that I previously led um for coaching, you know, or for uh or for interviews, because um we we do we do interviews as well, helping people understand the the complexities of a retail interview and what that looks like compared to every other interview that's out there. But to be able to walk into a store and feel the energy and also to see things that you possibly have put into place that are still operating, right? That is such a cool feeling. That is a legacy feeling. That is um something that is beyond you. It's a lot of times our legacy, we think about legacy meaning us and who we are, but to be very honest, your legacy is bigger than you. Right? Leadership, I tell people this all the time, and they they they they they scratch their head when I say it, but leadership isn't about you. Even though you're the leader, it's not about you, it's about your team, it's about those you lead. How are you leading those you lead? Right? The other side of legacy, and I'm gonna close with this is the personal side of legacy. The personal side of legacy You know your your retail career and your personal career sort of go hand in glove to some degree and you have to protect your personal life as a retail leader. And here's um one thing that I I learned at a at a early age in my retail journey, and my wife at the time said this to me. I didn't really think about it at the time. But I remember I came home, I came in one day, and I was just kind of like, oh, you know, kind of feeling all dreaded and tired and da-da-da-da-da. You know, my girls were like, you know, jumping all on me and stuff like that, and I was just like tired and uh just yuck. And I remember she said to me, she said, I I I want to get I want to get the same Steve that your team and that those customers get on the daily basis. That just that crushed me. That crushed me because I thought that I was, you know, um the same person, you know, at at home as I was, you know, uh, you know, in my in my stores or whatever. And I based on that I wasn't, and I really wasn't. You know, I gave my team, you know, everything. And at that point in time in my career, I was I was moving up so fast that I failed to, you know, um give my family, you know, that same measure of respect. So when you start to think about your legacy, you have to make sure that your personal life, your personal legacy matches to some degree your professional legacy. There there should be, you know, there shouldn't be this mate this major deviation from who you are personally to who you are professionally as a leader. The best leaders that I know, they they they're very similar in how they lead themselves personally and how they lead their teams. There is little deviation in that. So when you start to think about your legacy, ask yourself what am I doing on a daily basis? What are my intentions like? What about my relationships? How much acclaim and favor do I give my achievements? Am I focused in on my failures? Do I fail fast? Do I fail forward? Do I help my team work through their failures to learn to understand that is it is a learning experience and that failure does not mean it's it's not final? And then for those that you lead, how are you leading them? Are you leading them respective r respectfully? Are you treating them fairly? Are you pouring into their lives? Are you sowing seeds into their lives of really good information and content and so that they can take the information and move forward? What are you doing differently in your life right now? To leave a legacy that is going to last. So when you walk into a store, they can say, Hey, we missed you, but thank you for what you've done for us. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for the gift of you. That is the legacy that you want to think about leaving in your career. As a retail leader, we have so many things that buy for our day. It's hard to look past you know a day, a week, a month to think about our legacy. But let me tell you what, it's the daily activities that make up your legacy. Thank you for listening to this law of legacy. I have been Steve Worthy. Have a great day and God bless.
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