Passing It On: Growing Your Future Leaders (11 page)

We may prepare by writing a will or buying insurance and designating a beneficiary. We may name a guardian for our dependent
children or direct that our pets go to a good home. We may leave our business to our widows, widowers, or children. Yet some
people give no thought to these matters or die before they have had a chance to express their wishes for the future. None
of us knows when our time will be up, as Jesus said:

Matthew 25:13
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”

Perhaps all you have to bequeath are the things you have taught your children, the loving memories you shared with your husband,
the goodwill that your company has built up, or the unselfish works you performed through your ministry. These are your legacy.

A true leader wants to leave something in place. If you come to the end of your journey and leave nothing to show for it,
that is a tragedy. You might have founded a company that is now on the Fortune 500 list or a ministry that has so many members
that it has to meet in a stadium and hold six worship services on Sunday. If your heir destroys it all within months because
of poor preparation and bad judgment, your legacy is nil. It does not matter how great you are or think you are, nor what
monuments you have created, if it dies with you, you fail.

“Why blame me?” you might ask. “I was a successful entrepreneur. I built an empire here. I was a master of commerce in my
lifetime…”

True, you might have made millions or converted thousands, but you failed. You neglected to choose and mentor a successor
who could preserve your legacy. In your lifetime, you were responsible for training the next generation. It was your obligation
to preserve your legacy beyond that lifetime. The transfer of leadership is the greatest obligation for a leader.

Moses was a successful leader. Joshua was a miserable failure in the end. If you read the story of Joshua and Moses, you learn
how he mentored Joshua, trained him from a young age, and gave him the company when he was too weak to go on. Joshua ended
up with three million people, a lot of money, and a mobile tabernacle that was mortgage-free. He had everything going for
him, and when he died, he left it to no one.

Joshua might have been a hero to many because he marched his people across the Jordan and into the Promised Land, but he failed
as a leader. He did not leave a successor. Most of the leaders I have known failed because their work died with them. The
next generation had to start all over again to rebuild what they could. That is a waste of a whole generation.

I have watched leaders come and go, taking their vision with them. Then
someone else comes and takes their spot on earth, bringing a fresh vision. This to me is sad because I do not believe that
God intended for any of us to bring a new vision to the earth. He intended for us to make a link in the chain, to connect
our visions, our perspectives in life, from generation to generation, continually building on the vision.

We have to transfer the vision of our time and connect it to someone else to continue in his or her time. That heir to the
vision in turn will do something in the next generation, essentially assuring that we never die. You could say that a leader
with a successor never dies. A leader without a successor dies twice: with the physical death and with the death of the vision
that ends.

You are not successful because of what you have done. You are successful because of what you can transfer to the next generation.
The generation that follows you proves your greatness. Measure your greatness by what you are able to preserve for the next
generation
. A true leader is always preparing to leave. Protect, preserve, and perpetuate your leadership by making sure others will
carry out your legacy and build on your success.

If you hope to see your vision continue, bear in mind these principles for legacy preservation, leadership that extends beyond
your lifetime:

Leadership is never given to one generation
. Most leaders inherited a trust from the previous generation to give to the next generation. True leadership is never just
for your time. Always think, “What am I supposed to contribute to the future? What am I supposed to prepare for the generation
that is coming? What am I supposed to give them? What did I take from the previous generation and improve on that I can hand
to the next generation for its leaders to improve on?” Leadership is not just for you, it is always for your successor—a succeeding
generation.

Leadership that serves only its generation is destined to failure
. If you do not think beyond your generation, everything you achieve will die with you. You will be remembered only in your
time. Your name will be forgotten, unspoken by future generations. This is the worst thing that could happen to a human. Never
lead with only your generation on your mind. Whether you are a Sunday-school teacher in a megachurch, department
manager in a major corporation, or president of a large country, your leadership exists not only for your generation but also
for future generations.

God is a generational God
. When I say that God is “generational,” I mean that He thinks beyond this generation. He is mindful of all generations. God
never speaks just to you. He speaks to your loins. God always speaks to the generation trapped underneath you. If you ever
think God is speaking to you, you are going to lose your legacy. If you study Scripture very carefully, God always reminds
the person to whom He is talking that He is not really addressing them. God always speaks to the unborn because He thinks
generationally. So leadership that is genuine, that is from God, always thinks generationally. Do you know how long it took
the Israelites to get the land that God promised Abraham? It was so long that Abraham never got there. God was thinking in
generations.

Genesis 26:3
Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all
these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham.

A vision that is genuinely from God will always be bigger than your lifetime
. People think they should complete their vision in their lifetime, but God is too big for that. He will always give you a
vision that will outlive you. Part of your responsibility as a visionary is to prepare your replacement to continue the work.
Many leaders that people admire were, in my view, failures because they took to the cemetery everything they were supposed
to leave with us. Their work died. I believe that is not God’s plan.

God will never give you an assignment that you can complete in your lifetime because he is a generational God. He will not
allow you to complete the vision. He will allow you to finish your phase of it. You can always tell when a dream is from God:
You can never finish it. You can only finish your part of it, the part assigned to you in your lifetime.

I think one of the greatest statements made by Jesus Christ on Earth, whom I consider the greatest leader ever, was, “It is
finished.”

John 19:30
When he had received the drink, Jesus said,
“It is finished.”
With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

What is important is that He did not say, “I am finished.” There is a big difference between saying, “I am finished” and “It
is finished.” The latter refers to a phase. Why? He is still working, is He not? Yes, but He went to another phase that required
relocation to another place. The first phase was finished. He completed an assignment. What is He doing now? Interceding.
He is in the intercession phase.

Your next phase may require relocation. However, if you are stuck—hanging on to that old phase, God cannot get you to do greater
work. You can be so in love with what you are doing that it blocks you from your greatness. Never think that what you are
doing now is so great you cannot see beyond that. It is a phase. What can be better than resurrection? Simple. Going to Heaven
to sit on a throne and pray. Jesus is on a throne. To get there, He had to finish the first phase.

What you think is so great now may not be the pinnacle of your life. The dream in your heart will always be bigger than your
lifetime, and your assignment is to complete your phase of it. It is important to know when your phase is over. The length
of life does not determine completion of one’s phase, but completion of the assignment measures one’s fulfillment of life.
Jesus Christ finished the earthly phase of His assignment at the age of thirtythree.

Your assignment might be for only a few months, maybe a few years, or even a decade. Do not remain tied to it because life
is much bigger than your job. Stop planning to grow old where you are. You are blocking the next generation. Your life is
bigger than your job, so do not remain stuck in it.

If the spirit of mentoring and succession comes upon you, you will always be progressive. You will always be free to move.
If you capture that spirit, you will never be depressed when the company fires you because your interpretation of that would
be, “It is time to move on.” You were not fired. You were released to your next phase.

I am intrigued when I read in the Scriptures about the relationship between God and man. As I noted in the preceding principles,
whenever God deals with humans, He deals with them in terms of the future. He told Adam and
Eve to multiply, subdue, and fill the earth. That instruction has to do with the future.

Genesis 1:28
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish
of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then He called Abram and told him that he would have a seed, the seed would have a nation, and the nation would be blessed—nation
after nation. He was not talking to Abram. God said that the nations would be blessed through him. God was always referring
to generations.

Genesis 12:1–3
The L
ORD
had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will
make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those
who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

When God talked about the salvation of humankind, He promised a Messiah would come and save the whole world, which means His
promise to the prophets about the Messiah was not for the prophets but for nations and the world beyond that (see Genesis
12:1).

Everything God does is generational. He is the ultimate leader. If He thought generationally, we must think generationally.
The older I get, the more I realize this is just a brief moment in history. The eighty years that a long life might last is
so short compared to a thousand years beyond when your name will not even be remembered. We must think in terms of generational
leadership.

Whether a person is CEO of a company or minister for a youth group, leadership is never given to one generation. If you are
the elected head of a country, your leadership is not given to one generation. If you settle on that concept, you will realize
that every leader is temporary.

Often our temptation as leaders is to think the world begins and ends with us. It clearly does not. Leadership is always transitional.
Any leader who
thinks he or she is permanent must remember the Creator has one neutralizing agent for that: death. No matter how terrorizing
or how wonderful a leader may be, death will eventually terminate that individual’s phase.

Once you accept that you will not be here forever and that planning for succession might be a good idea, it might help to
understand how we develop as humans. Life has three phases: dependence, independence, and interdependence.

Everything that has life begins as a dependent, whether a child or a fruit. Dependence is not a sign of weakness, but rather
a sign of wisdom. The child remains in the womb because it needs a host. That is wisdom. I think that whenever we attempt
to avoid the dependent stage, we place ourselves in danger of premature death. That is true of the human being, the animal,
and the fruit tree. If we detach fruit before it is developed, it may never ripen. The same thing is true of humans.

You must understand that you were not conceived alone. You will never develop alone. You need to begin your journey submitting
to, learning from, depending on, and cooperating with a host. In leadership, we call these people coaches or mentors.

Mentoring is critical. Mentoring protects the emerging leader from premature destruction. Mentoring nurtures. Just as a mother
nurtures a child in the womb, a mentor provides incubation for development and advancement of a person. The placenta in the
mother’s womb is vital to transferring food, vitamins, and sustenance into the child. The mentoring environment is critical
for the transferring and transmitting of vital information. The root and branches of a tree nurture the fruit by giving it
what it needs, and so it is with all of life. Mentoring is imperative.

The tree must keep the fruit attached until it ripens. When the time is right, it will fall from the tree on its own. The
mother needs to know how
important it is to keep the baby in good health and to take care of herself for the sake of the child until it is mature enough
to function outside the womb. Many leaders do not understand that the people around them are green fruit, buds they need to
develop.