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How Can I Successfully Navigate Leadership Transitions?
We live in an age of change. It’s said that in this decade, it takes only two days for people to create the amount of new information that it took all of civilization to create from the dawn of time up until 2003.29
And some experts estimate that most American workers today will change jobs between fifteen and twenty times in a career.30 The days are long gone of finding a job and staying in it until you receive a gold watch and a pension.
Life means transition. Most people intuitively understand that the world is moving fast, yet they still have a difficult time with it. Brian Tracy was right when he said, “In a time of rapid change, standing still is the most dangerous course of action.” If you don’t learn how to make good transitions, you either get run over or get left behind.
One of the characteristics of good leaders is their ability to navigate transitions. That has always been true. They are able to make smooth transitions themselves. And they are also able to help their team members and their organizations do the same. The questions in this chapter will help you to become better at facing—and winning through—transition.
1. When Is the Right Time for a Successful Leader to Move On to a New Position?
Leaders often get restless. When they do, they start exploring opportunities and new mountains to climb. The more entrepreneurial the leaders, the shorter their attention spans often are. The key to knowing whether it’s time to transition is recognizing that there are two kinds of restlessness: good and bad.
Good restlessness is healthy. It pulls you forward toward improvement. It comes from your desire to grow, to make a greater impact, to serve others more effectively. Every major growth decision I’ve made in life grew out of this positive kind of restlessness. It came when I thought to myself, I can do better than this. There’s more in me, and I want to tap into it.
Bad restlessness comes from being bored or unhappy. It comes from a desire to escape. It causes you to be impatient. You often jump out of where you are, but not to anything specific. And as a result, it can actually put you in a worse place. I’ve seen many unsuccessful people allow this desire to escape drive them from place to place, and over the course of time, their situations actually declined. People experiencing the positive kind of restlessness are willing to hold steady until there’s an opportunity to move to something better. As my friend Elmer Towns, co-founder of Liberty University, says, “Don’t leave something; go to something.”
“Don’t leave something; go to something.”
—Elmer Towns
There’s one more thing to look at to determine whether the restlessness you feel is good or bad. Ask yourself whether you have given the best you have where you are now. Don’t move anywhere else until you have. Don’t seek a move just to make things easier on yourself. To transition with integrity, you need to have done your best work possible. Then you can leave with a clear heart and mind. Besides, you always want to leave on a high note. If you’re at the top of your game and you’ve given your best—you’re at a peak—you can see farther than if you’re in a valley.
Once you’re certain that your desire to transition is motivated by the right reasons, use the following steps to help you move through the process the right way.
1. Consider Your Possibilities
Every transition in life is a trade-off. Even when you leave a negative place, you leave behind some good things. Even if you go to a great place in your new role, there will be some things about it that you won’t like. It’s not black and white. And the more successful you are, the harder it is to make trade-offs, because you give up more when you trade off and transition. That’s why some people become successful and then become flat.
As I’ve already explained, if you’re experiencing the right kind of restlessness, you won’t be driven to jump quickly to something else. Patience and maturity will empower you to consider your possibilities as you seek to transition. During that time, study, reflect, pray, plan, read, and write. Look for opportunities. Interview people who are ahead of you in the journey. Use the time to your advantage.
2. Weigh the Risks and Rewards
If you are patient and keep your eyes open, you will find an opportunity. Before you make a transition, it is wise to do a risk assessment. Sometimes when I do this I actually sit down with my legal pad and create two columns, one labeled “Risk” and the other “Reward.” Then I list every risk and reward I can think of in the columns and compare the two. It’s not just a matter of which list is longer. Not all entries are equal. A single risk or reward may carry so much weight that it tips the balance.
As you weigh the risks against the rewards, be sure to take into account things that tap into your passion, giving them extra weight. And ask yourself these questions:
• Are the potential rewards greater than the risks? Be as specific as you can about the rewards. You don’t want to take a giant leap for a small reward or risk a lot for the potential of a small gain.
• Is what you hope to do achievable? There are no guarantees in life. You may not be certain about your ability to achieve what you desire. But you must know it’s possible to achieve it.
• Can you recover from the downside? You need to know what the downsides are, and know that if the outcome is a disaster you will be able to recover from it. It’s OK to fail. It’s not smart to fail in a way you can’t recover from.
It’s generally not wise to transition without having clarity about where you want to go. You can follow your instinct, but you don’t want to do it uninformed.
3. Receive Affirmation from Your Inner Circle
The most important person you need affirmation from when making a transition decision is yourself. You need to know your own heart. You need to have confidence. You don’t want to make a move if you can’t find peace within yourself. Otherwise you’ll be plagued by doubt if something goes wrong. And that makes it hard for you to keep steady and persevere.
The most important person you need affirmation from when making a transition decision is yourself.
Having said that, it’s wise for you to get input from the people closest to you and from wise people ahead of you. I sought counsel from people for every major transition I’ve made. I sought advice for clarity, but not for confidence. The right people’s opinions, thoughts, perspectives, and experience can provide a tremendous amount of clarity. They can clear things up for you quickly. Other people can help you see the bigger picture, especially when your head has been deep into the details. If your decision is right, their input should make that clearer to you.
4. Take Action and Move Forward
In the end, if you believe the decision to transition is right and you know where you desire to go, you need to take action. I’ve known many people who didn’t make the leap when they thought they should, and who later regretted not having taken it. Most people I know who try, risk, and fail are satisfied because they had the courage to try. They have self-respect, even though they didn’t get what they expected. Not everyone expects to get to the top, but everyone would like to have a shot at it.
Indecision and inaction are what hurt most people. Those who don’t take the leap when they think they should, die slowly. They think about what might have been—especially as they get into their forties and fifties. Most decisions people regret in life are the ones they make that lead to inaction. If you’re getting older, the only thing worse than not having made a decision when you were younger is not making it now if you still can. Don’t live your life haunted by the question “What if?”
I have never had total clarity when it was time for me to make a change. I’ve never had a vision in which it was all laid out for me. My need for a transition has always come as I began feeling dissatisfied and thinking about other possibilities. When I’m in the right place doing the right thing, I don’t think of any other possibilities. I just love what I’m doing and can’t imagine doing anything else. I’m excited and I want everyone around me to be excited. I want them to have a chance to get involved and benefit from what’s happening. When I start to feel some dissatisfaction, it’s often because I can’t grow any more and my current situation is limiting my potential. That’s when I start to open myself up to other possibilities and move from an intuitive sense of a transition to the more concrete process I’ve described.
2. What Steps Can a Leader Take to Implement the Changes that an Organization Needs to Be Successful but Resists Making?
Former US president Woodrow Wilson said, “If you want to make enemies, change something.” Few people like change and welcome it. I used to think that leaders liked change and followers didn’t, but the truth is that leaders don’t like it any more than anyone else does—unless it was their idea!
“If you want to make enemies, change something.”
—Woodrow Wilson
All change does not represent progress, but without change there can be no progress. And it is often up to leaders to initiate and implement changes. But here’s the good news: if people need change, they often look to leaders for inspiration and guidance. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. observed, “People are often led to causes and often become committed to great ideas through persons who personify those ideas. They have to find the embodiment of the idea in flesh and blood in order to commit themselves to it.”
If you find yourself in a position where you are the leader who must lead the charge for change, keep in mind the following guidelines:
Change What Needs to Be Changed, Not What Is Easy to Change
When organizations are having difficulties, leaders instinctively know that changes need to be made. One question is whether they will make real needed changes or merely cosmetic ones. Cosmetic changes are relatively easy to make. They give the semblance of change, but often don’t actually produce positive results.
Changes that can make a difference are harder. Changing organizational culture when it’s unhealthy, for example, is difficult. So is changing values. Or leaders and the way they are developed. But these kinds of efforts are what really change an organization.
The second organization I led had plateaued before I arrived. In an effort to start making progress again, it made changes, but they were only cosmetic. It changed its name—a common strategy that brings little positive benefit if it’s the only thing that’s done. It made minor improvements to the facility. It changed meeting times. These things did not create growth.
What needed changing was the culture. As soon as I got there, I started developing and equipping leaders. That was a slow and difficult process. But it created lasting change. After a year the organization began to grow. It wasn’t long before we started to plan the building of larger facilities.
As I write this, I’m currently working to facilitate a major change in one of my organizations, EQUIP. For over ten years we’ve been training leaders, and we’ve been very successful. EQUIP is the most successful leadership training organization in the world, having trained more than five million leaders in nearly every country in the world. But I believe EQUIP is capable of more. We are working to shift from training to transformation. We want to make a significant impact on people in the countries where EQUIP operates.
Will that mean easy change? No. Is there any guarantee we will succeed? No. But we are giving it our best because if we do succeed, we will help transform people’s lives. And if you help enough people to transform, they will transform their nations.
Let Go of Yesterday So You Can Go to Tomorrow
Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, once said, “In three years every product my company makes will be obsolete. The only question is whether we will make it obsolete or someone else will.” Because of the speed of change in technology today, people who work in that area accept that they must let go of yesterday and embrace change for the sake of tomorrow. Those of us who aren’t technical or don’t work in related industries seem to have a more difficult time with this concept.
Authors and consultants Eric Harvey and Steve Ventura assert, “Our brains are like closets. Over time they are filled with things that we no longer use—things that don’t fit. Every once in a while they need to be cleaned out.” If you are going to lead change, you need to clean out your closet, and you need to help the people you lead to do the same. That’s often not just a practical or intellectual exercise; it’s also an emotional one.
Acknowledge the importance of the past. Honor the people who have made past contributions. But also show them why they can’t stay where they are, and why the place you want to take them is so much better.
Communicate the Message with Simplicity and Power
Good leaders take the complex and make it simple. That is a hallmark of a good communicator. That’s not easy, but who ever said leadership was supposed to be easy?
There is great power in a simple clear message. A really good example of a leader’s power to communicate clearly comes from the leadership of Roberto Goizueta at the Coca-Cola Company in the 1980s. Goizueta was one of the most successful CEOs in Coke’s history and made Coca-Cola the most prominent trademark in the world. One of the things he often said to impress upon people the growth potential of Coke was this: each of the six billion people on this planet drinks, on average, sixty-four ounces of fluids daily, of which only two ounces are Coca-Cola. What a clear picture. Closing the “sixty-two gap” became a centerpiece of inspiration and motivation within the company. People embraced change in order to achieve it.
The other thing you need to do as you communicate the vision for change is to give people multiple reasons for it. The more reasons for change, the more likely people are to accept it. Certainly the main reason will probably be that it is better for the organization. But how is it also good for customers, clients, and the community? And how is it better for the people in the organization who must implement the change? Never underestimate the importance of answering the question “What’s in it for me?”
Activate Belief in People
As you work to implement changes, you must believe in them. Without conviction you won’t give yourself 100 percent to the changes. People will sense that and will not follow you. But believing in the cause is not enough. You must also believe in the people who will make the change. Without that conviction they will not move forward. Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch observed, “Any time there is change, there is opportunity. So it is paramount that an organization get energized rather than paralyzed.”
You energize an organization by energizing its people. You activate their belief in themselves. Your confidence in them will give them confidence in themselves. As J. Sterling Livingston said, “People perform consistently as they perceive you expect them to perform.”
Remove Barriers for People
Once you communicate the need and vision for change and help people to believe they can change, your most important task as a leader is to start removing barriers that will keep people from executing the plan. Barriers are usually created by outdated systems, complicated procedures, difficult people, or strained resources. To find the barriers, get out among the people, watch what they’re doing, and listen to their complaints.
Lead with Speed
Speed is important in creating short-term wins. Never underestimate the significance of early victories for giving people confidence to keep moving forward. Wins nourish faith in the change effort. They give an emotional lift to the people who are carrying and implementing the change. And they silence critics. Every win helps to build momentum, which is a leader’s best friend. As former college football coach Darrel Royal said, “Luck follows speed.”
3. How Do I Change My Mind-Set from That of a Producer to That of a Leader?
Most of us get our first opportunity to lead because we are personally successful. We produce for the organization, and some leader in the organization wants us to help others do the same. When that happens, we need to shift our focus.
PRODUCER: Concentrates on tasks
LEADER: Concentrates on team
PRODUCER: Feels indispensible in what they do
LEADER: Feels responsible for what others do
PRODUCER: Possesses tunnel vision
LEADER: Possesses team vision
PRODUCER: Thinks, “How can I help?”
LEADER: Thinks, “Who can help us?”
PRODUCER: Asks, “What can I do?”
LEADER: Asks, “What can we do?”
PRODUCER: Produces through addition
LEADER: Produces through multiplication
Put simply, to shift from producer to leader, a person must make the mind shift from me to we.
If you’re a good producer, you probably know how you personally contribute to the vision of the organization. Ask yourself, “How does this team contribute to the vision?” and “How can every individual member contribute to the team?” Your job is to maximize the team’s effort to fulfill the vision.
You also need to work to build relationships with the people on your team. If you are naturally a task-oriented person, this may be a stretch. Get to know your team as individuals and try to connect with them. Look for ways to add value to them. Find ways to lift them up with encouragement and gratitude. You can’t really know what everyone’s best contribution is until you know everyone.
As a producer, you already know how to win. As a leader, your job is to help the entire team win. You know how to cross the finish line individually. Now find ways to rally and guide everyone on your team to cross the finish line together.
4. As an Entrepreneurial Leader of a Fast-Growing Organization, How Do I Know Whether to Transition My Role to Create Structure and Stability, or to Hire Leaders to Fulfill the New Needs?
Success in an organization often creates as great a need for change as lack of success. Many people don’t recognize that. It’s obvious that in an organization that’s not succeeding, leaders need to create change to get forward progress and create momentum. However, when organizations are highly successful, especially smaller organizations, leaders must make changes to sustain success and increase momentum. If they rely too long on past successes and keep doing what they’ve always done, the organization will eventually hit a wall.
In small entrepreneurial organizations, the top leaders are often the catalysts for the organizations. They are the ones who see opportunities, produce organizational energy, and create synergy between the organization and its customers. Their passion and personalities have driven the organization’s success. They’ve probably made most if not all of the key decisions. And they’ve been able to touch everything and everyone in the organization to keep it on track.
As the organization grows, they can’t keep doing that. They see and feel the need for structure and processes. So the question is, do you change your role? Do you try to focus on creating stability and structure for the organization?
If you are the catalyst for your organization, my admonition is to not lose your strength. Small organizations are personality driven. The leader’s passion drives everything, and the leader breathes fire into the people. In your need to solve problems or desire to grow, don’t institutionalize your organization too quickly. Instead of changing your role, channel your energy. Here’s how:
Invite Your Inner Circle to Help You Focus Your Energy
Most entrepreneurial leaders don’t struggle to find opportunities. They struggle to focus on the best opportunities. And the more gifted the leaders, the greater the number of options available to them.
Most entrepreneurial leaders don’t struggle to find opportunities. They struggle to focus on the best opportunities.
There was about a decade in my leadership when I got bombarded with opportunities, but I wasn’t always sure about which ones to pursue. I was still doing some fine-tuning of my leadership and communication, and there were a lot of different directions in which I could go. I solved the problem of focus by forming what I called the Hatchet Committee. It was comprised of several key leaders, along with my wife and my assistant. Once a month we met to review opportunities, discuss strategy, and weigh choices. They shared their perspectives, offered wisdom, and reminded me to stay in my strength zone even when I stepped out of my comfort zone. The organization and I benefited highly from their input.
If you decide to do something similar, make sure you have the right people in the room. They need to understand the importance of your entrepreneurial spirit and have the wisdom and skill to channel it, not control it or try to stop it for their own comfort or convenience. I also recommend that you meet fairly frequently. This is not a one-and-done kind of activity, especially in an entrepreneurial organization, where the landscape is constantly changing and you’re continually reevaluating your opportunities. We met monthly. You may need to meet more frequently. Figure out what your rhythm should be.
Enlist People Who Maximize and Magnify Your Energy
Once you’ve narrowed your focus to the things that have the greatest potential, you need to make the most of them. One of the things I’ve always looked for in people on my team is the ability to maximize the opportunities we have.
For example, when my organization puts on an event at which I will speak, the amount of time I have to spend to personally prepare is the same whether I’m communicating to fifty people or five thousand. If my team can do the work to get more people in the room, it magnifies my energy and makes the most of it.
Every experience that involves other people can be magnified by those who understand the value of an opportunity, the importance of timing, the quality of the experience, and the impact of numbers. If you’re the one who sees and seizes opportunities, bring around yourself leaders and support staff who can make the most of those opportunities.
Empower People Who Have Skill and Energy in Areas Where You Lack Them
I’m not big on structure. I think too many organizations overemphasize it. And I think a lot of organizations use reorganization to try to solve problems when they don’t know what else to do. Instead I prefer a leadership-driven model of organization. Put the right leaders into place, train and develop them well, then empower them to make an impact in their area.
Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to employ good leaders who possess skills in areas where I’m lacking or have little patience. They have put into place structure and processes that have created stability for my organizations, but we’re still entrepreneurial. The structure needs to serve the vision and the leadership, not the other way around.
As your organization grows, look for people who share your values and have a deep appreciation for opportunity and impact, but who can bring organizational skills to the table to help you build a framework that will further growth and serve the vision. The energy that you bring and that is already felt throughout the company will be even better when it’s channeled correctly.
5. What Leadership Principles Enable a Failed Leader to Lead Again Successfully?
When leaders fail, whether the breakdown occurs as a result of poor character, bad judgment, or lack of skill, one of the first things they think about is often how to move back into leadership. I think that’s only natural, because leaders love to lead. However, I think they err if they don’t first stop and take time to correct whatever problems they’ve had. If they don’t, they are very likely to keep repeating the same mistakes.
If you’ve failed as a leader and lost your position, you need to consider the following before attempting to return to leadership:
Evaluation: What Went Wrong?
Before you can move back into a leadership role, you need to fix whatever problems you have in your leadership. You can’t do that if you don’t know what they are. Where did you go wrong? Was it a mistake in strategy? Did you lack skills necessary for good leadership? Do your problems stem from poor self-leadership? The last is the most common issue for failed leaders, but it is often the most difficult for them to see on their own. If you’re not sure what went wrong, talk to people with firsthand knowledge to get their perspective.
Emotional Strength: Can You Bounce Back?
I strongly believe that people need to learn how to fail forward, and I believe they can. However, it requires emotional strength. If you’ve failed, you need to be able to face your failure, own up to it, and process it emotionally. And you also need to regain your footing and rebuild your emotional strength and resilience before you try to lead others again. If you haven’t regained that emotional strength, you’re likely to repeat the same mistakes, especially if character and self-leadership issues were at the root of your past problems.
Evolution: Can You Make the Adjustments Needed for Future Success?
After you’ve identified what went wrong and regathered your strength emotionally, you still have a lot of internal work to do. You need to make the changes in yourself to set you up for future success. Maybe you need to put yourself on a personal growth plan whereby you read a dozen books and attend some conferences. Maybe you need to seek counseling to help you with character issues. Maybe you need to find a mentor. Maybe you need to further your education. Maybe you need greater accountability. You need to figure it out and make necessary adjustments. If you’re not willing and able to do that, you probably should not step back into leadership.
Once you’re done working on yourself, you still need to do a lot of work with others. You need to earn respect and rebuild trust with people. When you are leading others, you have relational “change” in your pocket that allows you to lead. As FedEx founder Fred W. Smith observed, “Leadership is getting people to work for you when they are not obligated.” As long as you have change in your pocket, people will work for you. Every good decision, every win for the team, every positive relational connection with team members creates additional change. Adding change takes time. Every bad decision, every loss, every relational fumble takes away change. Losing change occurs more quickly than earning it.
“Leadership is getting people to work for you when they are not obligated.”
—Fred W. Smith
Some people use up their change slowly. Others lose every bit of it in a single action. If you failed as a leader and lost your position, it was because you ran out of change. The last thing you did wrong may not have been the worst thing you did. Whether you were aware of it or not, it was the thing you did after you had run out of change.
If you desire to lead again, you will need to rebuild trust and earn back relational change. Consultant and former executive of Fortune 50 companies Michael Winston asserts, “In every major study on practices of effective leaders, trust in the leader is essential if other people are going to follow that person over time. People must experience the leaders as believable, credible, and trustworthy. One of the ways trust is developed—whether in the leader or any other person—is through consistency in behavior. Trust is also established when words and deeds are congruent.”
The process of building trust begins with being honest and transparent about your weaknesses, frailties, and mistakes. People don’t expect their leaders to be perfect, but they do expect them to be honest. If you understand your humanness, can learn to accept it, and are open about it, you’re in a position to ask people’s forgiveness. That’s where the trust-building process starts. Many people will never trust you until you ask forgiveness. Some won’t trust you even then, but if you’re honest and humble about your failure, ask forgiveness, try to make amends, and demonstrate a willingness to change, you’ve done what you can to move forward. You have no control over whether others forgive you or trust you again. You can only do everything in your power to earn trust from the people you work with. Just be sure that if you regain their trust, you move forward with integrity and don’t willingly violate it again.
6. Why Do Some Leaders Fail to Have a Successor?
It’s been my observation that there are two main reasons organizations don’t have successors. The first is that some leaders simply fail to plan for succession. Some people don’t like contemplating the end of the leadership road for themselves, so they simply refuse to think about it. They act as though they will live and lead forever, and they either die while still holding on to their positions or get pushed out once they are no longer effective.
I once heard of a leader who founded an organization and adamantly refused to create a succession plan. When other leaders in his organization pushed him to do it, he dug his heels in. He said he didn’t want anyone else to take credit for his accomplishment. He wanted the organization to die with him. I find that to be very selfish.
When organizations fail to have a successor, it’s usually not because the leader doesn’t want one. More often it’s because one of the following happens:
• The organization doesn’t accept the new leader. Sometimes the people in an organization are so entrenched in old thinking that they won’t allow a new person to lead them.
• The new leader doesn’t like the organization. Sometimes there isn’t a good fit, and it’s not discovered until the new leader takes the reins.
• The new leader doesn’t fit the corporate culture. Every organization has its own culture. If the vision and values of the leader don’t match up with those of the organization, there will be a clash.
• The new leader fails to bring about successful changes. Sometimes the person chosen to succeed a leader isn’t as good as hoped. The failure can occur due to lack of ability, capacity, experience, knowledge, or relational connection.
• The old guard sabotages the efforts of the new leader. Any time an organization contains leaders who believe they were passed over in favor of another leader, there is the danger that they may do what they can to make the new leader fail.
• The old leader sabotages the efforts of the new leader. Occasionally the person stepping down has a hard time seeing someone else succeed in the position.
There are certainly no guarantees when it comes to succession, yet I believe it is something worth fighting for. The Law of Legacy in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states, “A leader’s lasting value is measured by succession.”
A leader’s lasting value is measured by succession.
As I write this, I am sixty-seven years old. I don’t believe it’s time for me to step down from leadership. I think I still have more to give. But I’ve been thinking about legacy and succession for several years now. It’s my desire to build organizations that will survive me and continue to make a difference. I’m working to help the leaders of The John Maxwell Company, the John Maxwell Team, and EQUIP to think ahead. Together we’re planning for the day when my run is over and someone else will be better able to add value to people.
7. What Are the Most Important Things a Leader Transitioning Out of a Position Can Do to Ensure the Success of the Person Taking Over the Role?
Bob Russell and Bryan Bucher, authors of Transition Plan, liken the succession process to that of passing the baton in a relay race, which I think is an apt description. Here are the points they make on how the two processes are similar. They say,
- The one passing the baton must keep running full steam until the baton is passed.
- The one receiving the baton must start running before he receives it.
- Both runners must remain in the same lane.
- The baton must be passed in a timely fashion.
- If the exchange is handled properly, it’s possible to gain a step in the transition instead of losing a step.
- Once the baton is exchanged, the one passing the baton does not run alongside the next runner coaching him, but stops, catches his breath and walks across the infield to cheer for the successor at the finish line.31
If you are preparing to pass the leadership baton to a successor, that needs to be your primary focus as a leader. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, was quoted as saying, “From now on, choosing my successor is the most important decision I’ll make. It occupies a considerable amount of thought almost every day.” He said this in 1991—nine years before his eventual retirement.
If you are thinking about succession, whether because of a transition to another organization or because you believe your time to lead is coming to an end, I believe you, your organization, and your successor will benefit if you proceed in this way:
1. Plan Ahead
As the outgoing leader, you must do your best to prepare yourself, your successor, and your organization for the upcoming transition. It is your responsibility to the people you lead to make the change as smooth as possible.
I learned this the hard way when I left my first leadership position and transitioned to another organization. I was a young leader in my early twenties, and it never occurred to me to plan for a successor. When it became clear to me that my time there was coming to an end and I needed to seek other growth opportunities, I became open to other possibilities. When I got a chance to take a position that would stretch me as a leader and increase my impact, I took it. I did nothing to prepare the organization I left to make the transition. I didn’t know I should, and I didn’t know how. It wasn’t until later, when I saw the organization lose ground from where I’d left it, that it occurred to me that I should have done something.
2. Pick Your Successor
In some organizations you don’t get to pick your successor. It’s done by another leader or by a board of directors. However, if it is within your power, pick someone who has the potential to take the organization farther than you have. Obviously you want to look for high leadership gifting and strong skills for your industry. But also keep in mind how long the person will have the potential to lead. Russell and Bucher explain that Zenith, a longtime player in consumer electronics, started to decline when its founder handed off the company to a successor who was seventy years old. The man led the company for only two years before stepping down.
Jack Welch said of his selection process, “I wanted to pick someone young enough to be in the job for at least a decade. While a CEO can have an immediate impact, I always felt people should live with their decisions and especially with their mistakes. I certainly had. Someone with less time might be tempted to make some crazy moves to put his stamp on the company. I’ve seen too many examples of that.”
You probably naturally gravitate to people in your own age bracket. Birds of a feather flock together. If you’re my age, don’t allow yourself to think of successors of your own generation. Reach down. Look for young leaders with potential. They may not have as much seasoning and experience, but they give the organization a better chance to succeed in the long run.
3. Prepare Your Successor
Focus your efforts on giving the upcoming successor every possible opportunity to take on responsibility, make decisions, and influence the organization before the transition. Leadership author Marshall Goldsmith is right when he says, “Succession plans do not develop anyone… only development experiences develop people.”
Your goal as a leader should be to work yourself out of a job. Develop your successor as a person and leader. Don’t think solely in terms of the job. Try to reproduce yourself. Equip and empower your successor to the point that they can do the job as well as you—and then some. If you give all you can and add it to all they are and bring to the table, you give the person and the organization a good chance to succeed.
Your goal as a leader should be to work yourself out of a job.
4. Take Care of Any Unfinished Business
If you are leaving an organization on a high note, you probably have a clear perspective on your organization. That means you know where the problems are. No one is in a better position to take care of unfinished business than you are. You have people’s respect, and you have the power to solve difficulties for your successor. So why not do that? You can afford to take hits because you have so much credibility. You can create space for your successor to move forward without those difficulties. What a fantastic gift.
5. Say Goodbye
When it’s time for you to resign, leave. Few things are more debilitating to a new leader than having his predecessor meddling in the organization and undermining his leadership. Jeffrey Immelt, Jack Welch’s successor at General Electric, asserted as he took over as CEO, “The most important thing that Jack can do now, so I can really take the reins, is to leave. I could always call him and ask him for advice. But physically, the business can only have one leader.”
When you step down from the leadership of your organization, get out of the way. Let your successor do the job outside of your shadow. As Marshall Goldsmith observed, “The best thing the CEO can do is show integrity on the way out by doing everything possible to ensure that the next CEO is successful.” That includes removing yourself so your successor can lead and people in the organization can follow them.
6. Make Yourself Available to Your Successor
Part of saying goodbye is not offering unsolicited advice. However, your successor will appreciate it if you make yourself available when and if they choose to reach out to you. There are things only you can know. You have a perspective that is unique and valuable. Offer it when asked.
I mentioned that when I left my first leadership position, I didn’t do a very good job of setting the organization up for success. When I left Skyline after twenty-six years in ministerial leadership, I did a better job. For fourteen years I had planned ahead by developing leaders. I developed the staff, and they became a fantastic team. I also developed my board of directors. While it was true that I did not get to pick my successor, because that would not have been consistent with the bylaws of the organization, I had developed the leaders on the board who did the picking. And when I left my position, I said goodbye. In fact, in my last official act as leader, I told everyone in the organization that when I left that day, I was no longer their leader.
After I made the transition, I tried to do everything in my power to help my successor, Jim Garlow, be successful, including keeping the door open to him any time he wanted to discuss an issue or ask about the history of the organization. I’m always glad to help in any way I can. I love Skyline and its people, and I still want the best for them. When Jim wins, so do the people—and so do I.
8. How Do You Handle Leaving and Breaking the News to a Great Team of Great People Who Came to a Company Because You Asked Them to?
Telling people goodbye can be difficult. Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Ellen Goodman wrote, “There’s a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over—and to let go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on rather than out.”
At the time I left Skyline, I was excited about the next phase of life, but I was saddened to leave such great people behind. Some of the key staff had been with me for more than ten years. We had been through a lot together and really cared about one another.
When I made the decision that it was time to leave, I went to my key people and let them know first. I felt that I owed it to them. I also promised to help them in any way I could, and I’m grateful that I was able to follow through on that promise.
When you make a transition, no matter now necessary it is or how well you do it, you will disappoint people you care about. You should not allow that to stop you if it’s the right thing to do. Help the people you can. Set your successor up for success. And leave with integrity. You can’t expect yourself to do more than that.
9. What Should Be the Legacy of a Successful Leader?
Legacies that matter are connected with people. A hundred years from now all that will matter is the people that you connected with in such a way that you added value and meaning to their lives.
I’ve spent a large portion of this chapter discussing succession and how to pass the baton of leadership to other leaders. Political commentator Walter Lippmann said, “The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in others the conviction and will to carry on.” Ultimately, if your people can’t do it without you, you haven’t been successful in raising up other leaders.
We have all heard that “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.” I also believe that when the teacher is ready, the student appears. There are people in your world who would be thrilled to learn from you—not just the person who will succeed you in your leadership position, but people in every area of your life.
I believe the greatest legacy a leader can leave is having developed other leaders. Develop them as widely and as deeply as you can. I’ve spent more than thirty years teaching leadership to leaders from every walk of life and nearly a hundred countries. My organizations have trained millions of leaders in nearly every country. In the last few years, I’ve begun to personally invest in coaches and speakers who are actively teaching to others the values and principles I embrace. And I’m investing deeply in a handful of leaders in my inner circle.
If you want to leave a legacy, invest in people, and encourage those you develop to pass on everything they learn from you to others who will do the same. People are what matter in this world—not money or fame or buildings or organizations or institutions. Only people.
Many years ago I came across a poem called “The Bridge Builder” by Will Allen Dromgoole. It encapsulates the attitude of legacy-building leaders. It says,
An old man walking a lonesome road,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and wide and steep,
With waters running cold and deep.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim,
The rolling stream had no fears for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow traveler near,
“you are wasting your strength with building here.
Your journey will end with the passing day,
You never again will pass this way.
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide—
Why would you build this bridge at eventide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head,
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
The chasm that was nought to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He too must cross in the twilight dim—
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”
Achievement comes to people who are able to do great things for themselves. Success comes when they lead followers to do great things for them. But a legacy is created only when leaders put their people into a position to do great things without them. The legacy of successful leaders lives on through the people they touch along the way. The only things you can change permanently are the hearts of the people you lead.
The legacy of successful leaders lives on through the people they touch along the way.