Passing It On: Growing Your Future Leaders Read Online Free PDF Page B

after securing the foundation, mission,
     and vision,I knew the time would come for me to relinquish the power, privilege, and authority I enjoyed and to share them with my mentee.
     In 1995, I made an official decision to appoint from among the team the leader who understood my heart and vision, the one
     who would be willing to sacrifice. Today, that leader has principle responsibility for the core organization and is doing
     an outstanding job. This critical move of putting a successor in place has allowed me the ability to expand the organization
     worldwide. I could not have done that if I had remained strapped to the first seat of power. My conclusion is that mentoring
     and succession is the only way to extend yourself beyond your limited position.
    True leaders must:
    •  Find the courage to mentor.
    •  Secure a legacy for the next generation.
    •  Transfer their deposit to the next generation.
    •  Measure success by the success of their successors.
Jesus Builds a Transition Team
    The historic leader Jesus Christ began organizing and building His organization at age thirty and appointed His first few
     leadership team members from among common village folks who were also business owners involved in the fishing industry. As
     soon as He gathered His first leadership students, He began to speak of His inevitable destiny—to be arrested, tried, tortured,
     crucified, and resurrected from the dead. He constantly reminded them of His need to leave them and urged them to prepare
     for this inevitability. Early in His ministry one day after the mentees had failed to exorcise a demon from a little boy,
     He asked them a revealing question.
Matthew 17:17 “O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?”
    The implications of these questions are profound. His words reveal thefrustration of a teacher or mentor who expected His students to learn enough to allow Him to turn His work over to them with
     confidence. It also indicates His deep desire for them to learn what He knew and to perform at His level.
    Here are the most important considerations for succession planning, using the mentoring style of Jesus Christ, the greatest
     leader who ever lived, as our model and standard:
“The secret to succession begins with the leader’s acceptance of his mortality.”
    Plan your departure the day you begin . You are dispensable, mortal, and temporary. Start with the attitude, “I am temporary, and my greatest job is to leave someone
     greater than myself in this position.” You start planning immediately to leave this position. The secret to succession begins
     with the leader’s acceptance of his mortality. It begins with a consciousness—“I am temporary”—that allows confident leaders
     to begin planning their departure. “I am aware that I must quickly find a replacement, train and develop someone quickly in
     case my departure is soon.” You must “begin with the end in mind,” as the best-selling author and business trainer Stephen
     R. Covey put it in his classic guide
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
. That was Habit 2. He meant it for normal, daily tasks or projects. In this case, the logical “end” is the end of your tenure,
     your working life, or the end of life itself. Recall how Jesus reminded His team that His departure was inevitable and should
     be an incentive for them to apply themselves to the lessons at hand:
Matthew 17:22–24 When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They
     will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief.
    True leaders should always lead with their departure in view, being ever mindful that their priority is to work themselves
     out of a job.
    As a leader, you cannot buckle yourself in and strap yourself to the seat of power with the hope that no