Great leaders live into the future. They carry a vision of the future that is better than the present, and they must sell this vision to the followers for a buy in. Such leaders go beyond the regular call of duty because of posterity and their commitment to the next generation. Every tree bears fruits and in the fruits are seeds which preserve the specie and guaranty reproduction after its kind. Otherwise the next generation is in jeopardy, and great leaders understand this principle of the kingdom.
Mentorship is an age long phenomenon that is basically supposed to get the next generation on the highway of self-discovery and engagement in a manner that redeems the time. There is no new problem and there is no new challenge. Everything that is has been and if you stand on the shoulders of people who had gone ahead of you, you gain speed and you cover great distance with minimal effort. So, mentorship is the greatest act of leadership that translates leadership into legacy. Mentorship creates the avenue for leaders to invest in the people, and ultimately prepare for succession. Through mentorship, the leader serves as a model, a tutor, an example, and a counselor to the protege in order to produce one greater than himself. Failure to mentor a successor is failure to preserve your own legacy; you do yourself great disservice as a leader. Therefore, a leader cannot afford not to identify, recruit and mentor people because success without a successor is a successful failure.
Mentorship is about intentionality…it demands that you intentionally transfer knowledge, experience, skills, and information. If you hoard information so they don’t know your secrets, then you are a bad and insecure leader setting yourself up for failure. If you understand that failure of your proteges and your successors is your own failure, then you take mentorship seriously. Jesus told his apostles everything until he said to them, ‘you are no longer servants but friends because I have told you everything’. Jesus did not plan to perpetuate himself and neither should you. Transfer knowledge as quickly as you can. Stimulate your mentees to ask probing questions so you can get them ready to take over from you and make you unnecessary on your present role. Do not be afraid to take vacations and to delegate….when would you be able to play golf and not worry about the business of the company? When Jesus prayed for his apostles, he also prayed for those who will come to the father through their ministry…so he was thinking trans-generationally. That should be your mindset too.
Your successor preserves your legacy. Succession begins with and defines success in leadership. As a leader, you cannot afford to let your vision die with you else you are a failure. Your success is measured after you have gone. Abraham was successful because Isaac continued with the vision. If your focus as a leader is to build houses or walls, or to acquire wealth, you need to remember that buildings get old and out of fashion, money goes away, everything else can perish but succession preserves success. It cannot be adequately emphasized that great leaders invest in people. Have you not heard about parents who struggle to build houses and leave estates behind only for their children to sell those estates for a fraction of the value as soon as the parent passes away? Leaving houses, cars, or properties for the next generation is not legacy, it is called Inheritance. So great leadership is about continuity not about inheritance.
It is not all about you, it is about the next generation. Through succession, purpose is perpetuated. Succession also involves effective transfer of the leader’s purpose, values, and morals to succeeding generation of leaders. Successor never destroys the foundation; he builds on it. Jesus was successful because Peter understood and continued with the purpose.
Moses was a successful leader because he handed over to Joshua, but who did Joshua hand over to? Do you think Joshua was successful? From leadership and succession perspective, I don’t think so. In fact, Joshua was a successful failure because after his death not only did he not hand over the baton, the children of Israel knew not God. If you want to make some leaders uncomfortable ask them about their succession plan. Insecurity makes bad leaders destroy the opposition or people that threaten their comfort zone. Even in churches, the politics of position and rank has made many churches redundant. We have even heard about pastors going as far as trying to poison other pastors to pave way for themselves to ascend positions of hierarchy. How shameful!
Some leaders are afraid of the future success of their successor so they eliminate the potential successor who may likely outshine them….we know several of them who have done things unimaginable to frustrate the next generation or the assistants. If junior pastors tell you what they go through in the hands of some general overseers and senior pastors, you will not believe it. I am not sure if this is worse among black people, even though I hate to attach color to these issues. When was the last time that junior pastor that you like preached in church on a Sunday morning? Does the senior pastor have monopoly of spiritual insight?
Is it not a compliment for your leadership when your successors outshine you? Those people you want to put down and hold down belong to the generation next which is the future and so your job on this relay race is to prepare them for tomorrow. You must plant the seed even though you may not be here when the tree bears fruits. Great men speak long after they die through the voices and ministries of their protégés. Even if they or you do not think they qualify, how did you qualify to be and to do what you do now? Did Abraham qualify for the call? Did Moses qualify? Did Gideon qualify? How did David qualify? What about Samuel? How about Ruth? The list is endless. Great leaders recruit, equip and deploy people to go and maximize their potentials but bad leaders recruit, refuse to equip but employ people to take instructions from them and do their bidding. That is manipulation and dictatorship not leadership.
So, your leadership is not measured by how many people serve you but how many people you serve. Mentorship is about how many people you have made more successful than yourself. Mentorship is not just duplication of yourself but transformation of the other person who needs to beat all your records because they have the benefit of utilizing all your strategies and avoiding all your mistakes. Mentorship is service and that is why black people do not give attention to it. Mentorship is you pouring all of yourself into someone else, so he must be greater than you because he has all of you and all of himself in one vessel. If you brag that nobody has beaten your record, you should be ashamed of yourself. You do not have forever to see to it that certain people are transformed around you by your deposit in their lives ….Jesus asked them ‘ how long will I be with you’? I ask you Bishop, “how long will they serve you before you trust them and show them what and how?
I was privileged to run both sprint and relay races for my school one time, so I understand that leadership is like a relay race not sprint. There are usually four people in a relay team. Normally they know their individual strengths and speeds and they could plan the legs accordingly, but no one wins by the legs, they win or lose as a team. Speed is important but skillful transference of the baton is critical. The window within which exchange of baton happens defines a change in the progress or otherwise of the team. As a runner, you don’t just want to run your leg well, you want to hand over the baton successfully and you want the other persons to do the same. Even if you did everything right and the other person did everything wrong, all your effort and ideas and knowledge and skills amount to nothing. Your team is disqualified, or you do not win the trophy you have prepared for all these years. What would happen if one of the runners refuses to hand over the baton and keeps running into the next runner’s space? Is not that what we see happening in most of Africa where men in their 80s refuse to let young people take over positions of leadership?
Can you imagine that the president of a country and his chief of staff are both in their 80s? What an analog combination? Contrast them with Nelson Mandela who spent decades in prison but only served one term as president and handed over the baton. Leadership is about successful transition. People misinterpret notoriety with popularity…until you pass the baton you are not yet popular. Do not go home with the baton in your hands….pass it on.
If everything you know dies with you what have you achieved? We have families in Africa whose ancestors knew how to heal all kinds of diseases but died with that knowledge unfortunately. You make your exit plan in the days of your optimal performance. You must understand the urgency of now in your leadership role. Great leaders do not always die old, they need to die empty or they have failed destiny. Who is next in your organization waiting for the baton? Do not eliminate him for being ambitious so long as his ambition is not inordinate and illegitimate. Know when you have run your leg and pass on the baton. When your time is over you run out of ideas and if care is not taken you start running backwards to your old ideas and old programs. You cannot solve tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s skills, and you do not have monopoly of knowledge. Get out of the way! It is time for succession and your successor is waiting to take the vision to the next level. May God give us understanding
Mezie Okolo, Leadership Analyst @TheRitePlace