It’s one thing to be a successful change agent or serial innovator. It’s still another thing to build a team that continues to morph and innovate over the long haul.

But rarer still are the leaders who leave behind a legacy of genuine openness to organizational change and innovation. These leaders not only innovate; they set the stage for future leaders to continue innovating long after they’re gone.

I have experienced the joy of leading under the legacy of one who paved the way for future change and innovation. I’ve also known the frustration of trying to lead under the dark shadow of previous leaders whose policies and procedures tied my hands, making it nearly impossible to do what needed to be done.

That’s why I’m so passionate about finding and empowering young eagles. It’s also why I believe that paving the way for future leaders to fly as free and high as possible is one of the most important things a leader can do.

My greatest legacy will not be found in the changes and innovations that bear my name. It will be found in the corporate culture I leave behind. If I leave a legacy that encourages continual change and innovation, future leaders will rise up and call me blessed. If I don’t, they will call me something else. I can’t put it in print. But you can guess.

To leave behind a legacy that supports and cultivates future change and innovation, three things will need to be in place before the next group of leaders takes the helm. Here’s a brief look at each one.

1. THE FREEDOM TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

To lead wisely, leaders need to continually ask and answer the following questions:

What is our unique mission?
What are our unique strengths and weaknesses?
What is current reality?
What do we need to do to better fulfill our mission?

But notice what they don’t need to ask or know.

They don’t need to know what their previous leaders would do if they were still in charge.

Trying to figure out what previous leaders would do is a waste of time. It’s impossible to know. At best, we can know what they did in a different era, under different circumstances. But that doesn’t tell us what they would do if they were in our shoes today. Even if the situations are exactly the same, the surrounding circumstances are not.

Yet the more innovative and successful our previous leaders were, the more likely it is that we’ll look to them for guidance, not realizing that their ability to think outside the box in unpredictable ways is what made them great leaders.

What Would Walt Do?

It’s reported that after Walt Disney’s death, one of the most common questions asked among the new leadership team was, “What would Walt do?”

The result of asking that question was nearly two decades of slow decline. Even into the late 1970s, management was still asking what Walt would do, and then answering based on what he did in the 1950s and early ’60s.

But had Walt still been alive, odds are he would have responded differently than he did back then. When he was alive, he was constantly adapting and seeing things from a fresh perspective. Certainly he would have continued to adapt and change in ways that no one can predict.

That’s why Steve Jobs famously told Tim Cook right before his death to make sure no one at Apple asked, “What would Steve do?”¹⁷

Unfortunately, lots of leaders and leadership teams consider the “What would Walt do?” question to be a compliment. They’re so sure that they’ve got it right that they can’t imagine tomorrow’s leaders needing to change anything. So they entrench today’s policies, procedures, and programs deeply into the fabric of the organization. And in so doing, they make it nearly impossible for future leaders to innovate or lead.

Leaders Who Won’t Trust

But there is something far worse than naively assuming that today’s answers will solve all of tomorrow’s questions. It’s assuming that tomorrow’s leaders can’t be trusted.

Unfortunately, it’s a mindset that is far more common than most people realize. It shows up when today’s leaders lock down the options that future leaders will have in the fear that they might otherwise betray the mission. It’s based on the assumption that people can’t be trusted, especially the next generation. It’s a toxic combination of arrogance and distrust that sabotages innovative leadership.

Most organizations have far too many rules and regulations. Many seem to be based on the belief that current staff and future leaders lack common sense.

For instance, consider the plethora of rules and regulations found within many churches, government agencies, unions, academia, and other bureaucratic organizations. While many of their guidelines and policies may be helpful, some are simply ridiculous. But far worse is something that no one seems to notice: the impact that having a rule for everything has on leaders. When everything is spelled out, there’s no room for leadership. There’s room only for enforcement.

It’s no wonder low-trust organizations are seldom known for their cutting-edge or innovative policies and programs. They have to focus most of their energy on enforcing their rules rather than fulfilling their mission.

Another example can be found in the detailed constitutions and bylaws that control many ministries. I’ve seen some that spell out everything. Yes, I mean everything. They dictate the ratio of board members to constituents, lay out detailed job descriptions, specific staffing roles, salary structures, required programs, and even the schedule for worship services.

But ironically, these rigid rules designed to protect the mission always end up sabotaging the mission. They lock in policies and procedures that no longer work. They provide all the answers ahead of time, even when the questions have changed.

Expiration Dates

I’ve never met a leader who was grateful for a long list of rigid rules and regulations left behind by a previous leadership team. Most leaders are more than happy to listen to advice and learn from the past. But they hate to have their hands tied. And for good reason. To lead wisely, they must be free to ask and honestly answer, “What is the right thing to do in this situation, at this time?”

One of the best ways to provide future leaders with the freedom to continually ask that question is to make sure that all of our current policies, procedures, and programs have an expiration date — if not literally, figuratively.

Eventually, they’ll all have to be tweaked or abandoned. So why not explicitly state that on the front end? And I mean explicitly. Whenever possible, let everyone know, “This is what we are doing for now; tomorrow may be different.”

Ideally our policies and procedures let everyone know how we do things around here. They’re simply statements and codifications of our best practices. And theoretically they should always be open to review and change.

But anyone who has led anything for ten minutes knows that organizational inertia quickly turns these policies and procedures into a sacred and eternal recipe. That’s why I recommend that leaders constantly look for ways to remind everyone that the way we do things today may not be the way we do them tomorrow. If you beat that drum long enough and loudly enough, it will make it far easier on tomorrow’s leaders when the expiration date finally comes.

2. THE FREEDOM TO DISAGREE

Tomorrow’s leaders will also need the freedom to disagree with some of our fundamental and deeply held convictions — and the freedom to act on it.

Now, I’m not talking about moral issues. Right and wrong doesn’t change over time.

But there are plenty of areas where we have deeply held leadership convictions that don’t rise to the level of moral imperatives. I don’t know what makes you pound the table. But I do know that every leader has a short list of nonnegotiables that aren’t based on Scripture, morality, or integrity. They’re simply reflections of our personal values and priorities.

One of the best things we can do to leave behind a legacy of continual change and innovation is to look for ways to make sure that those who follow us will have the freedom to do things we would never do. That means paving the way for them to lead in ways that are counter to our deeply held convictions about how things ought to be done.

For instance, when we sought the entitlements for our new main campus, one of the major impetuses behind our neighbors’ fierce opposition was a clause in our use permit that allowed us to have a school on the premises (kindergarten through high school).

The irony is that I am not a fan of church schools. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. I find that those who use a classroom Monday through Friday eventually control what happens on the weekends.

Since I want North Coast to be a church for everyone, including those who don’t have the funds to send their kids to a private school, I’m leery of anything that might undercut our ability to provide an incredible weekend experience for the kids who come. I want our classrooms to be themed with the Bible stories and the lessons we teach on the weekend, not pictures of past presidents and the alphabet.

Now you may disagree with me. That’s not the issue. Time will tell. I could be wrong. But for today, one of my leadership nonnegotiables is that we will not have a K – 12 school at North Coast as long as I’m in charge.

Yet none of our opponents knew this. So when they offered to settle the lawsuit if I would agree to drop the right to someday have a K – 12 school, I burst out laughing. I felt like Brer Rabbit hearing that he’d been condemned to the briar patch.

Now this may surprise you. But our answer was no.

We refused to drop our right to have a school because, while it would have perfectly aligned with my leadership values and priorities, it also would have tied the hands of our future leaders. Codifying my nonnegotiables would have eliminated their right to disagree. So we continued with the lawsuit, losing both time and money, but ultimately gaining full flexibility and freedom for our future leaders.

Years down the road, if future leaders ever choose to revisit the church-school question, they’ll be able to ask, “What does God want us to do?” It’s a much better question than, “What did Larry want us to do?”

3. THE HUMILITY AND HONESTY TO HIGHLIGHT PAST FAILURES

The last thing that future leaders will need in order to freely innovate, make changes, and lead well is a humble and honest view of the past.

The problem is that our idealized memories of the past almost always look better than the harsh realities of the present. Given enough time, gory days turn into glory days, and pedestrian leaders begin to look like superstars.

If the past really did include glory days and initial leaders really were superstars, this can make it incredibly hard for the next set of leaders to lead.

That’s why it’s especially important for successful organizations and the leaders who help spearhead that success to be humble and honest enough to highlight and even memorialize their mistakes as well as their victories.

I think of a friend who followed a legendary leader. He did an admirable job. But every misstep was amplified under the microscope of an idealized image of his predecessor. Eventually, the comparisons became unbearable. So he stepped down.

Make no mistake, his predecessor was incredibly gifted and successful. But he was also far from perfect. He and his board made some goofy decisions that sabotaged the future. Long before he moved on, the massive crowds had already begun to wane, as well as his commitment and passion to the organization.

But that’s not how anyone remembered it. Board members, lay leaders, and leftover staff romanticized the glory days and forgot all the pain that came with it. As a result, they fiercely resisted anything that seemed to break with the past, which made it impossible to halt their long and painful slide toward insignificance.

The only way to keep this from happening is to make sure that our failures are as well-known as our successes. That’s one reason why I always talk about the “dark years” (my first three years at North Coast). I want people within our organization to know that I goofed up, made stupid decisions, and faced a season without growth. I also talk freely about the pain of an attempted coup, dumb financial decisions, and many other things that highlight my (and our current leadership team’s) feet of clay.

No one wants to follow an idol, especially one that bears no resemblance to the real person.

Ultimately, all a leader can do is prepare the horse for battle. The outcome is out of our control. All we can do is make sure that we’ve done our best to create a climate of innovation and to foster an openness to change. We can light fires and pour gasoline on the ones who are already burning.

But at the end of the day, from a legacy standpoint, the most important thing we will ever do won’t be found in the changes and innovations that bear our name. It will be found in the change agents and innovative leaders who stand on our shoulders.

Chapter 21

IT’S NOT ABOUT US

Leaving a Legacy of Change and Innovation