Passing It On: Growing Your Future Leaders (26 page)

“I know you are not the oldest one,” she said. “But I want you to know that Dad and I want to turn our estate over to you.
We are going to give you all of our books, all of our bank account numbers. We want you to take care of everything.”

I began to protest, saying, “But I have three brothers, seven sisters. I am sure my oldest brother expects certain things.”

I am the middle child in a family of eleven children. Usually, by law, the oldest son would take such a role.

She said, “Son, just keep quiet.”

I said, “Mom, why me?”

She put her hand on my head and simply said, “Son, because you are my boy. I know you love me.”

In a week, my mother was dead. Her reasoning in choosing me was not who was qualified by law to inherit this role, but who
was qualified by love.

From that moment on, I took care of my father. Until this day my father does not work. I told him. “For the rest of your life,
do whatever you want.” I took care of my youngest sister, who was still at home then. My mother told me to take care of them.
I think it was a transfer of leadership, a rite of succession.

“Inheritance of leadership is not automatic.”

All my brothers and sisters know how I feel about them. If they need something done, they just call me. They all look toward
me. If they want something to happen, they call. It is unspoken, but I think it is because I never wanted anything for myself
and never asked for anything. I am the one who always wanted to make sure everyone else was all right. That always has been
my position and my view. Every family seems to have a person like that, someone who holds everything together. It is the one
qualified by love.

Now, in addition to being their brother, I pastor all of my siblings in my ministry in the Bahamas. I think my coming into
this leadership position in the family is similar to what happened to Peter on the day of Pentecost. Everybody knew something
strange had happened, but when it was time for someone to speak up, they all looked at Peter, the one the Master had left
in charge. He stepped into the role and began preaching.

Acts 2:12–14
Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have
had too much wine.” Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd…

He went on to preach about how the One who was crucified had come as the son of God and about His plan for salvation. The
Bible says about three thousand people became baptized believers that day. By speaking up, Peter had stepped into the leadership
for which Christ prepared him.

If you own a family business, you might assume that your son or daughter is the natural heir and is ready to step forward
to carry on your enterprise. However, just because someone is in your family does not mean that he or she is the natural successor.
Do not assume that the person who succeeds you in whatever you do has to be a family member. You might prefer that it be,
but it does not have to be. Whether it is a company you have established or some project that you have built, you might want
your family to inherit it, but it does not mean that your children will protect it.

Even in a family, you can see the destruction of your dream. I have heard many stories about families who have built successful
businesses, but whose children did not have the passion of the father or mother for the business and who would sell it for
almost nothing. They would destroy the family business because they have no interest in what their parents built.

Blood does not qualify people to succeed you. It does not give someone the same interests, skills, drive, or determination
that you had. Having your DNA does not make them a leader. Kinship does not guarantee shared vision. More importantly, it
does not guarantee that someone will love you enough to protect your legacy.

Which one of your children loves you? Families are strange. You love your family members because you are obligated to do so,
not because you chose them. Maybe you started out cutting grass and eventually built a landscaping company that is now worth
millions. One of your children might be willing to give up a career to keep what you built from dying, but your children stopped
cutting grass a long time ago. You were able to send them to the finest schools, and they went on to become professionals.
Now you are getting too old to run the firm on a day-to-day basis. One child says, “Daddy, I am a doctor, but I do not want
to see what you started die. I am going to stop practicing medicine and take charge of the company.” That child loves you
enough to carry on your legacy at the expense of his career.

Another child says, “Well, that’s my daddy’s business. I respect that, but it is not what I want to do with my life. If it
dies when he dies, that’s his problem. I’m a dentist; I have to take care of my dental career.” He is not willing to sacrifice
that for your dream, and that too should be understandable. That child has his own area of gifting and must pursue his own
purpose.
To choose him as a successor and insist that he carry on your legacy would be a disaster.

Many family businesses die because we as founders assume our children will carry it on. You work for years building the company
that has provided their livelihood, give it to your son, and within five years he is bankrupt because he did not love what
you love. He could not appreciate the cost you paid to build that company. He did not value you.

I have seen parents who accumulated millions of dollars in real estate or finance and gave it to a son who lost everything
in ten years. He did not qualify as the one who will love, protect, and defend what the parents built. Choose the one who
would protect and defend you at his own risk.

That one who loves you and will protect your legacy might not be a relative. A leader might think, “Well, if I built this
massive legacy, then it should be inherited by my family.”

Inheritance of leadership is not automatic. Your children have their unique gifts and must pursue their own purpose. They
might contribute to the future of your enterprise, but you might have to look elsewhere for a successor.

God is bigger than your private family. Let your children do what God created them to do.

Some of the most miserable people on earth are those forced into the family business, and some of the worst failures are those
of dynasties left to a family heir. I am not looking for my family to inherit the organization I build. That might happen,
but it might not. I searched for the person who loves me for who I am. He will love those things that I love when I am gone.

Succession should be determined not by relationship, but by love. This remains true in families today. Children in very rich
families can destroy the family’s fortune because they do not respect the price their parents paid to build it. Wealthy organizations
who entrust themselves to those who are not relatives but who care about the family’s legacy and work hard to protect that
name fare far better.

Many times the family members are more interested in the money accumulated
than they are in the source or product of the visionary’s passion. I think Paris Hilton is a good example of that. Her great-grandfather
Conrad Hilton Sr. built a global hospitality company. Her father and grandfather continued in a similar fashion. She wanted
to go play games and buy clothes.

Many organizations founded by an individual tend to suffer from the “entitlement syndrome,” a condition in which blood relatives
to that individual feel the organization is obligated to choose them as natural successors. This concept does not come out
of any biblical truths or sound business model. Today I know of many ministries and companies founded by individuals who forced
family members into the same line of work or profession. In many cases, these heirs destroyed the organization. In other cases,
they were only there because their families expected it of them, not because they wanted to be there. As a result, they were
under great stress, working under duress, not doing well, and not fulfilling their own purpose.

Whenever God calls you to do anything, it is not a guarantee that He will call your offspring to do the same thing. It is
not an assurance that your family will be a dynasty. Leadership is not a dynasty of kinship. God’s dynasty is based on conditions
or hearts, not genetics.

When we look at biblical examples, we see that Peter was not kin to Jesus. Yet he was the chosen successor. Jesus chose the
one who loved Him, not the ones related to Him. We believe that Jesus had half brothers and sisters, but He did not choose
any of them as the successor for the leadership of His organization.

Joshua was not a relative of Moses. He could have chosen a relative. Moses had a sister, Miriam, and a brother, Aaron, but
he gave his whole organization to Joshua, not siblings. Miriam was jealous and Aaron could not be trusted, but Joshua loved
him. Joshua was the one who loved him. Joshua defended Moses, stayed with him, and went to the mountain with him.

Exodus 24:12–13
The L
ORD
said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of
stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction.” Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses
went up on the mountain of God.

Miriam seems to have gotten jealous when her brother started hanging out with this young fellow Joshua. That is when she started
talking about Moses’ wife and about hearing from God directly (see Num. 12:1–2 as I discussed in chapter 15).

She implies that Moses was spending too much time with this teenager. “You do not spend time with your big sister. Who brought
you up?”

Some people feel you are obligated to pick them because they have been with you a long time. Succession is not by seniority
either. It is by love. You might have people who have been with you for twenty years. Yet you have made no promises that any
of them could take over when you are gone. Now some of them are angry with you over that. Then here comes someone who has
just been with you for three years, and you spend hours pouring your life into that person. The ones who have been with you
longer feel jealous and angry. They even attack the new person or talk about you and your relationship behind your back.

In every case that we read in the Bible, we see a trend in which the one who loved the leader is the one who succeeded, as
in the cases of Jesus and Peter, then Paul and Timothy. They were not relatives. The Bible does mention certain instances
where succession went to a relative. David and Solomon, for instance, were father and son. More often though, biblical successors
were not kin.

When it comes time to choose a successor, pray and observe everyone around you in your organization. Study the staff, look
closely at each family member, and try to discern who qualifies. If you decide your enterprise should go to one of your children,
it should be the one who loves you. The goal in family life is to cultivate an environment in which people can express and
communicate their love for one another. However, I know of no principle that states succession must be a result of genetic
coding or dynastic relationship. Therefore, no child in any family should feel an obligation to follow in the profession of
the parent. It is very important to allow people to discover and pursue God’s purpose in their own lives.

Even children who have the same parents may have completely different
purposes. We would love to see our children work in the environment that we built, but they do not need to work in the same
position we had. If you build a family company and you have four children, each might have very distinctive gifts that can
be useful in different ways. All of them could have gifts suitable for purposes very different from yours. Yet all of these
children could be useful in the same company.

Even if they do not inherit your position, they could participate through their gifts in that company that you built—if that
is their purpose. One is an artist who could be useful in designing new products or working in advertising. The other is a
financial genius who could reorganize the accounting systems or lead the company into new investment strategies. Perhaps none
is a master of marketing as you were, but together they could cover that function or hire someone to do it if you were gone.

We need to learn not to make our offspring feel obligated to follow in our footsteps. In the church, I have seen people who
believe that their children are supposed to inherit the ministry automatically, and some children try it. That does not mean
they are succeeding at it.

I do not encourage my children to follow me into the ministry. That would contradict my own teaching. I cannot preach all
over the world, telling people they should develop their own gifts and pursue their purpose, then come home and force my children
to follow in my footsteps. They are busy with their own purposes.

People ask me, “You have a son and a daughter. Which one is going into the ministry?”

Probably neither one. I told my children that I did not want them to feel obligated to take this ministry. It is not mine.
I am just God’s hired hand.

“Find your own call to your own generation,” I say. “You find your purpose. You pursue it. I will train, teach, and give you
everything that I have. I want you to dream bigger than I dreamed. I want you to learn everything about God for yourself.
The beat goes on.” I have no plans for them to take this ministry. It is not mine to give. We cannot call people to the ministry.
God does.

My son, Chairo, or Myles Jr., and daughter, Charisa, have accepted completely different calls for their lives. They certainly
seem to have purposes other than mine. My son is studying business administration, and my daughter is studying psychology
and social work. I must not force them to be me.