Their Past Is Your Present: Here’s How Ancestry’s CEO Sees Family History Shape Your Leadership

You may not believe in ghosts, but your ancestors definitely haunt you.

No, you don’t need to call the Ghostbusters; Deborah Liu, the president and CEO of Ancestry, told us in our podcast interview it’s their influence that continues to shape you through the generations. Their decisions continue to make an indelible difference today. It makes perfect sense; for example, would you be enjoying your current success if your great-grandparents hadn’t immigrated to your current country? Would you even exist if a marriage a century ago hadn’t been arranged? The list goes on.

Your leadership skills link directly to your ancestors, too. For example, family heritage affects your resilience.

Deb references studies demonstrating that merely knowing your family history helps build resilience. People draw strength from their roots. Often, that strength comes from knowing about the adversity some of your ancestors faced. If they could overcome their life-or-death travails, a difficult project at work takes on a much more balanced perspective. As Deb says, “We are the history of thousands of people who made millions of decisions that bring us the life we have today.”

Keep this in mind as a leader; when your employees can bring their whole selves to work, including their histories, they can draw from that collective strength, forging more resilient and adaptable teams.

More broadly, your leadership draws from community.

Wherever your family settled, they didn’t do it alone. Just as today, immigration happened in waves throughout human history. People rapidly mingle with other population groups, forging strong ties and building supportive communities. This creates all kinds of invisible networks of support: family, mentors, neighbors, colleagues, towns and boroughs, and so on. We like to think we achieve success on our own, but the reality is we do nothing in true isolation. Those communities are bolstering you in ways you most often take for granted; even something as simple as a neighbor letting your dog out so you can wrap up an important proposal can mean the difference between a promotion and staying stuck as a junior manager.

As a leader, make support visible at work. Foster a sense of community with team building, mentorship programs, and collaborative team structures – any opportunity for employees to connect and support each other will boost morale, increase engagement, and help people feel valued. Community is, in a word, empowering.

As you navigate ever more complex challenges in our continually changing world, resilience, community, and collaboration form your recipe for more effective leadership. You’ll develop professional humility, too; with an eye on the past, it’s easy to see that leadership isn’t about individual achievement, but empowering and elevating your team as a whole.

Your past makes you future-ready.

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode Looking Back to Look Ahead: Ancestry’s CEO on Leadership, Tech, and Knowing Your Roots.

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