Lead Like You’ll Be There Forever
What if the best leadership advice for today’s fast-moving world is to act like you’re never leaving your job?
Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last first got me thinking about the difference between short-term and long-term leadership. Recently, another voice reinforced that idea for me: Dr. Roger Parrott, president of my alma mater, Belhaven University here in Jackson, Mississippi.
Dr. Parrott has served in that role since 1995, making him one of the longest-tenured university presidents in the country. He clearly practices what he teaches. And in his book The Longview, he offers a simple but radical challenge:
Lead as if you’re going to be in your position forever.
Not a year.
Not five years.
Forever.
At first glance, that sounds wildly unrealistic in 2026. Job mobility is normal. Résumés filled with short stints aren’t unusual. The days of staying with one organization for forty years and retiring with a gold watch feel long gone.
But the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that he’s onto something.
The Day Leadership Changed
In Leaders Eat Last, Sinek points to a pivotal moment in business culture: August 5, 1981, when President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers during a nationwide strike.
Sinek suggests that decision helped legitimize a new leadership mindset—one that prioritized protecting short-term financial outcomes over protecting people. Mass layoffs, once rare, became more common. Over time, many organizations began treating employees less like family and more like expendable resources.
As trust declined, loyalty followed. In many workplaces today, both employers and employees assume relationships may be temporary. Leaders chase quarterly targets. Employees keep one eye on the exit door.
Short-term thinking became normalized.
Pressure to Win Now
You don’t have to look far to see how powerful short-term pressure can be. Living in the South, I follow college football closely, and one thing is clear: coaches are expected to win big and win immediately.
Even successful coaches can be dismissed when expectations shift or momentum dips. The financial stakes can be astronomical. Louisiana State University (LSU) recently hired former University of Mississippi head coach Lane Kiffin. In addition to paying Kiffin $13M per year—one of the highest salaries in the country—the school also had to buy out the remainder of former coach Brian Kelly’s contract—to the tune of $54M. The financial stakes really are astronomical.
Why did LSU decide to part ways with Kelly? He must have really stunk it up during his tenure, right? Not really. He went 34–14, a 71 percent winning percentage. Not too shabby. But in high-pressure environments, recency matters most. Kelly lost four games in 2024, a total that many fans and supporters found unacceptable. And at the point in the 2025 season when he was fired, his team was 5–3. The writing was on the wall.
Past results didn’t matter anymore. His years of success didn’t matter. All that mattered was winning now, and Kelly wasn’t doing it. So he was fired. And it didn’t matter how much money it cost the university to move on; the pressures from all quarters demanded it. Time was up. Nobody was willing to wait for Kelly to figure things out and right the ship. He was done. That’s the reality leaders operate in today.
In environments driven by intense scrutiny, recent results can outweigh long-term track records. And that dynamic isn’t limited to sports—it shows up everywhere leaders are evaluated.
When immediate performance becomes the only scoreboard that matters, patience disappears. And when patience disappears, long-term leadership thinking usually goes with it. I’ve seen this pressure firsthand in leadership roles outside of sports, where capable leaders made decisions that hurt their teams—not because they lacked character, but because they were pushed to deliver short-term results that carried no long-term value.
Why the Longview Still Matters
I understand why leaders focus on short-term results. Sometimes it’s survival. Miss your numbers and your job may be at risk. That pressure is real.
But leadership is a higher calling than self-preservation.
Some things should be nonnegotiable:
Caring for the people you lead
Weighing long-term consequences
Standing by principles even under pressure
Making decisions you can defend years from now
Sinek writes that the leaders who resist destructive short-term pressure are those guided by something greater than metrics. They are anchored to a higher purpose.
Not fans.
Not shareholders.
Not clients.
Not even bosses.
Purpose.
And leaders anchored to purpose are the ones with the clarity, courage, and conviction to lead like they’ll be there forever.
