As the parents to our kids we know we are training them to be our successors. The success or failure of any group or organization has more to do with our plans to raise up our successors than any other factor we can ever plan to do. Our very first day on the job is the day we should have made plans for our departure by preparing for our successors. It is our pride that prevents us from preparing our successors early on in our careers and it tightens the grip we have on our leadership, while humility will relax and let go of that grip on leadership.
An important measure of our success in leadership has everything to do with finishing well the race we have begun and that starts with our successors. As parents one of the very important lessons we must learn is sending our children away to college and that hurts, but it has to be done. As good leaders we have to put our successors to school early on and let them do the job. It is through mentoring and it is a non-negotiable function if we are going to have a successful leadership team and organization that we prepare our successors right out of the gate.
Why Leader’s Have A Hard Time Turning Over To Successors
Perhaps if we will take a look at the reasons why leader’s have a hard time turning the organization over to their successors and understand that the reasons for not letting go are very powerful ones after all then we can truly understand. There are several reasons and those reasons for not turning over the leadership to successors are really very valid reasons and here they are:
Job Security Is A Reason Not To Turn Over To Successors. When anyone is in fear of being replaced by a younger more viable model (as their successors) is not what we want to do. Especially when we enjoy our work we never want to think about leaving. But all good leaders that are true servants of the organization will always put the group’s interest ahead of their own.
Fear of Retirement Is A Reason Not To Turn Over To Successors. Why is it that for many of us that we see retirement as our being rendered useless? Retirement is our ultimate fear. The proven fact of the matter is this is a greater fear for men than it is for women. Women seem to find more self-worth from their work than do men and women will find it easier to prepare their successors early on as a result.
Resistance To Change Is A Reason Not To Turn Over To Successors. “A rut is a grave with the ends knocked out”! When we have been in a place for a long period of time we are comfortable with the familiar surroundings and the regular routines. We will resist any drastic changes in our lives. No one likes territory for which they are unfamiliar.
Self-Worth Is A Reason Not To Turn Over To Successors. When we lose our role as the leader many times we feel a loss of our confidence and identity. After all is this not what has defined us for all these years? This is especially true of the workaholics.
Lack of Confidence In Successors Is A Reason Not To Turn Over To Successors. We can always find a reason to stay another year or for another season or even for another decade. We have to make sure things are going to be run properly. After all we have been doing this job for thirty years or longer so how could anyone be expected to do it as good as we can.
Love For the People and the Job Is A Reason To Not Turn Over To Successors. This is by far the most emotional reason for hanging in there and not turning over to our successors. Why retire to boredom and loneliness when we can hang with the people we love? Why leave the warmth of our organization for the cold realities of something new? Heck, we love it here!
Loss of Investment Is A Reason To Not Turn Over To Successors. When we are responsible for building the organization or group it is really hard to let go and turn what we have built over to our successors. It is hard to let our children grow up and leave the nest, but it is still a necessary aspect of life.
There they are the reasons or concerns for not turning over the leadership of the organization or group to our successors. But at some point we are going to have to do turn it over or it will be turned over to someone when we die. Is it not better to prepare our successors in advance and insure the success of what we have built for years beyond us? We need to know when to pass the torch and have our successors prepared for the passing of the torch.
Pass the Torch To Successors To Guarantee Success
There is only one way we can succeed and that is with different kinds of mentoring relationships. Those mentoring relationships consist of the following:
1) Upward Mentoring For All Successors. There are always those mentors who have gone before. We all look up to someone and hopefully we will have trained someone who will look up to us (our successors).
2) Downward Mentoring For All Successors. There is the rifle vision of individuals that we are always on the look out for that we will develop into leaders. These are the people who will one day replace us in our leadership role.
3) Internal Peer Mentoring For All Successors. Who are the people within our group that challenge us to do and be all that we can be? These are the people who hold us responsible and accountable in our personal lives and leadership.
4) External Peer Mentoring For All Successors. The power of networking comes into play here in the mentoring process. Our peer co-mentoring relationships of individuals who are at roughly our same stage of maturity and career advancement that are outside our group or organization.
Here in lies the secret that makes for good leaders or mentors: 1) the ability to readily see potential in a person, 2) Tolerance of mistakes, brashness, abrasiveness, and so on in order to see the potential develop, 3) Flexibility in responding in circumstances, 4) Patience in knowing that time and experience are needed in development, 5) Perspective in having vision and ability to see down the road and in suggesting the next steps a mentoree needs to take, and 6) gifts and abilities that build up and encourage others.
There is one tool that all of us need to leave to our successors, whether we are talking about our children or our organization and that is the 11 forgotten laws of leadership. What is leadership without the laws that govern effective leadership. We have reserved the special unabridged limited edition of the 11 forgotten laws of leadership and you can get all the details and your copy by clicking here now.
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