Succession Planning Part 2: What Leaders Need to Know

Do you intentionally work to identify and cultivate young workers who will eventually fill key leadership roles in your organization?

Experienced leaders can leave a particularly powerful legacy when they invest in the next generation. Investing in people is a key element in succession planning – one that will allow your organization to grow beyond you.

Farmers who work with draft animals often train a young steer by yoking him with an older ox. Although the two are mismatched in size, the young steer learns quickly by walking alongside its older, more experienced partner. Likewise, Paul (a leader with a willingness to replicate himself) invested in the life of Timothy (a young servant with a hungry eagerness to learn), teaching him the ropes in ministry by tagging him as a companion in itinerant mission trips. In effective succession planning, both mature and younger leaders understand the need to work together. Here’s how experienced leaders can facilitate the process.

What Experienced Leaders Need to Know About Themselves

Your value
Leaders are tempted to hang onto their control out of fear that their usefulness will fade. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you have been an effective leader, your wisdom will be sought out as others take on responsibilities. Your role may simply take on a different form – as an executive mentor or a principal for a new subsidiary, for instance, rather than as a headquarters manager.

Your accessibility
Our star-struck culture places leaders on a pedestal. If you’re on one, jump down. Jesus was touchable. Remove layers that keep young leaders from connecting with you.

What Experienced Leaders Need to Know About Young Leaders

Young leaders are not a threat.
By equipping young leaders with skills that when exercised can exceed yours, your highest point becomes their starting point. This enables your life’s work to extend its reach even further. What a legacy!

Young leaders need purpose.
You may wish to shirk off unpleasant and menial tasks to an up-and-coming leader because she might make mistakes with meaningful ones. But does that help her grow? Effective mentoring says, “My job is to work myself out of a job. I want to teach you to do it better than me.”

Wise leaders know that true success lies in building something bigger than themselves. The intentional pairing of a mature leader with a younger one combines experience with new energy to build a stronger ministry – one that will not only endure, but multiply.