Passing It On: Growing Your Future Leaders (18 page)

We are supposed to give all our gifts, use them up, before we finish the race. We need to die empty and have nothing left
to take to the cemetery. True leaders work hard because they are on a race against death. Your greatest motivation should
be death. As you run every day, work every day, your main thought should be, “I have to be empty before I hit the cemetery.”
You will never be bored. Leaders are people who discover an assignment that is bigger than their lifetime. When their time
is up, they can pass their legacy on to the next runner.

The first act of true leadership is to identify your replacement and train them. I dare you to do what Jesus did. Jesus was
starting His ministry when He was about thirty years old. The first place He went was to the beach. He saw some men fishing.
He essentially said, “Take me out with you.” He catches fish for them and inspires them. At this first meeting, Peter fell
down in the boat. He said, “Get away from me, Lord. I am not worthy to be in your presence.”

Here is how the meeting went:

Luke 5:1–11
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of
God, he saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the
boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from
the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon
answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
When
they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners
in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter
saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said,
“Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”
For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of
Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.”
So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him
.

Jesus looked at Peter and probably thought, “That is the one I’m going to mentor. This is the guy.” At that first meeting,
Jesus basically says, “Peter, get up. Follow me. I will make you somebody.”

This is very important. Do not just follow anyone. Follow someone who can make you somebody. Jesus identified His replacement
and worked on him for three and a half years. Leaders make leaders.

The purpose for leadership is to make the follower just like you in knowledge, in wisdom, and in skill. Christ said the student
should become just like the teacher. The student should not remain something less than but should become equal to the teacher.
The student does not stay under the teacher forever.

Matthew 10:24–25
“A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher,
and the servant like his master.”

An effective master creates a masterpiece. An effective teacher creates a teacher. I find it intriguing that Jesus Christ’s
first act when He began His ministry was to go find potential successors.

The first person He chose to be a potential successor was Peter. This implies that He began from the beginning to mentor His
potential successor. His first act was to identify, His second act was to mentor, and His final act was to appoint His successor.

A true leader works himself or herself out of a job. When you gain authority, what do you do with it? You are now a bishop,
a chief financial officer,
a college president, supreme officer of the fraternity, head of the agency, or commander of the division. You have authority.
You are the authority. Use authority to empower others. The higher you go, the more leaders you should create. Pass the baton!
That is what Jesus did.

Matthew 28:18–19
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore [you] go and make disciples of all nations.”

He gave them the baton and urged them to do likewise.

Leadership is more of a relay than a marathon.

The leader must mentor to prepare the next runner to bear the baton.

Y
EARS AGO, WHEN
my children were very young, my wife and I took them to the world-famous Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for a vacation.
I had just bought my son an ice-cream cone that he held in one hand. In his other hand, he held cotton candy. My daughter
had just gotten a hot dog and was about to bite into it when my son began to cry for one. He wanted what she had. My good-natured
daughter reached out her hand to give it to him, but he had a problem. Both of his hands were full, and yet he wanted something
else.

His dilemma was one that successful leaders often face: How do I get what I want without losing what I have? How do I enjoy
the next opportunity and hold on to the present one? Finally, my son turned around and reached out his hands toward me as
plea for me to hold the runny ice-cream cone and the sticky cotton candy so he could take hold of what he wanted next—the
hot dog.

His boyish doings taught me another great life lesson: You cannot go to the next level in life if you are not willing to “let
go” of the present level. This is a fundamental principle of mentoring and succession. You have to move on so that you can
move up to your next assignment or phase in life.

Most people in leadership have the attitude that they will stay in their positions forever. They defend and protect their
turf. They are aggressive. They
watch for threats. They arouse antagonism in others. They look forward to collecting their pension from this job. They are
going to stay in this position until they retire or die. That is not leadership. It is insecurity. It is the epitome of selfishness
and self-centeredness.

Great leaders look for opportunities to leave because they have bigger, more-exciting things to achieve. They want to explore
different aspects of life. They want to expand themselves. For a great leader, every position is temporary. This is why that
leader needs to identify a successor. Mentoring becomes the major focus.

“Your vision should be larger than your current role.”

We are all “temporary” in the grand scheme of things. If you have been running the company or the country for forty years,
you are still temporary. We have all heard people say that someone has been running things for so long that he thinks he will
live forever. I assure you, he will not.

Your interest should always be in the future because that is where you will spend the rest of your life. Visionary leaders
are ready to move on when the time comes because they always have something bigger and better to do. Your vision should be
larger than your current role. Be eager to leave this success behind and go on to greater accomplishments. Continually be
thinking, “What else can I do? How much more can I contribute? What new things can I accomplish? I am really looking forward
to doing new things.”

Even Jesus had plans for what He would do and how He could continue to serve after He died:

John 14:3
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

He was already planning a greater role for Himself. What are you planning next?

Leadership succession is two-sided: Not only should you train and mentor your successor, but you also should retrain and mentor
yourself for life afterward. It would not be a bad idea for a leader to counsel himself while he is counseling his successors.
While you are preparing your successor, prepare
yourself for succession. Ask yourself what you will do, not just who will succeed you.

Historically, people focused on one skill, one career, and one trade, and they died in that trade. This was especially true
after World War II, when many people worked in factories that turned out the same product for years. Now the global economy
and new technology routinely displace people. We cannot count on having a job for decades, and workers have to find new ways
to earn a living.

Leaders are in a similar position at the end of a long career. Suddenly, they have to think beyond their position. They must
know how to prepare to leave.

As I mentioned earlier, the Bible says that even Jesus is still working. It is important to reiterate that after the ultimate
leader and mentor, Jesus Christ, had completed His redemptive act as a sacrificial substitute for all humanity, His last words
were not, “I am finished,” but “It is finished.” These two statements are very different and important. The latter implied
that an assignment was completed. The former indicates that a new phase would begin. Jesus Christ completed His earthly assignment,
transferred the responsibility to His successors, Peter, James, and John, and then moved on to His next position. The first-century
apostle Paul stated in his letter to the Roman church, “Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at
the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34). Here, we see that leadership never stops. It simply enters
new phases.

Death should not determine when and how you leave your position. Rather, leave because you are moving to the next phase of
your life.

Earlier I talked about the importance of vision in leadership because I believe it is vision that comes first. Vision creates
the leader. Often, however, as leaders become comfortable with the perquisites of leadership and fulfill their initial vision,
they stop dreaming. They stop planning. They have not begun to envision what they will do after retirement from this particular
job. They have not created new visions.

One day they will have to retire because they are too feeble mentally and
physically to do all the things they used to do. They have not made plans to get out while they still have time to do other
things. In these days, when many of us can look forward to longer, healthier lives, that is tragic. It is understandable that
leaders will not relish the day they have to retire if they have a vision of sitting on the porch in a rocker, whiling away
the time, forgotten by those they once supervised. Some look forward to years of leisure, but many still want to live useful
and productive lives.

The desire to retire should never be the motivation for mentoring and succession. Rather the motivation should be the desire
to be released from your present limited position in life to find new ways to contribute to the ongoing of humankind. Interestingly,
neither the word nor the concept of retirement exists in the Hebrew Scriptures, which seems to indicate that the Creator never
intended for us to stop working but to keep changing the nature of our work. Even death itself is considered only a transition,
not a termination in the Hebrew text.

While you still have time, why not plan an entirely new career? Create a charity. Move to a new industry or a different kind
of ministry. Take up coaching or teaching to share with a new generation what you have learned. Use talents or skills you
did not need in your old job, apply your knowledge to new endeavors, train for an entirely new field, or be like the woman
who once headed a county prison system, but now describes herself as “a full-time volunteer.”

How many times do we hear of people who are seventy or eighty years old completing a college degree? Yet how many times have
we heard of athletes who cannot seem to find a new purpose when their career on the field ends before they are forty? It is
a matter of perspective.

You may think you are too old for something new, but if you retire from an executive job at sixty-five, you could conceivably
live twenty-five to thirtyfive more years. That is long enough for another career. Studies have even indicated that intellectual
and physical activity will prolong life and productivity. The secret to a vibrant life is to keep renewing your life. The
danger of renewing your life is that you have to start over again, and human nature resists that.

Life should never be lived out. It should be lived in. We need to keep moving to the next life intended for us. Jesus left
because He had work to do in preparing a place for us and interceding on our behalf. He moved on to a new life.

Personally, I have lived three or four lives. What I am doing now, I will not be doing in the future. I do not want to keep
doing just the same old things. I am preparing for change.

In 1980, I initiated an organization, and after the first ten years of growth and development, I determined that the time
had come to begin mentoring and delegating responsibilities to others. Today many of the individuals I mentored are now responsible
for leading, supervising, and managing the entire organization. I also have had the privilege of officially appointing a leader
to oversee the entire vision with full authority and accountability to our board. This relinquishing of my positions and responsibilities
was the key to my ability to expand our organization from a national to a global influence. This should be the attitude of
every leader. Mentoring and succession do not result in losing a position or authority, but rather they make it possible to
increase and expand your influence and impact.

Most of the work done in my organization happens while I am away. I estimate that I now spend less than twenty percent of
my time with the organization every year, and yet the organization expands, grows, and runs effectively. That is a greater
measure of pride for me than if I were there giving orders every day. I am content to have my leadership measured by what
happens while I am not there.