Select, groom your successor early

"What's the most important leadership lesson you've learnt?" The question by the young intern really got me thinking. It was Q & A time after I had taught a leadership class and I took a moment to search through my mental database in search of the one lesson that could be qualified as 'most important'.

Then I replied thoughtfully, the importance of raising successors might not be the only important lesson, but it's certainly one of them.'

Raising someone to succeed you after you are gone does not come naturally for most of us. Many nations and companies have declined after the death or retirement of a great leader.

I'm sure you know families that have suffered greatly or have had to adjust their lifestyle drastically after the demise of a parent. Where they once lived well in a nice home, they now struggle to afford rent or school fees.

Why do we fear succession planning? Perhaps as Africans we feel we're inviting an untimely demise by planning for when we're gone. And yet, the reality is that the odds against us dying one day are practically zero.

We won't always be around, and believe me, planning for when you're gone won't make God take you home sooner.

Perhaps it's because we don't want to feel dispensable or unneeded. After all, if I groom someone else to be able to take my place, what's to stop them from being given my job before I'm ready to leave?

Few of us have written our wills and fewer are mentoring someone at work to take over our roles. Even fewer are setting up systems and mentoring at home so that our spouse or children will be able to continue with life if something happened to us.

And yet the true test of a person's leadership is the health of the organisation when the founder is gone. Good leaders are defined not just by how well they led, but by the legacy they left behind. Or as someone once said, 'show me your successor, and I'll show you your success!'

The problem might not be fear but ignorance. There's a delightful Bible story about Moses, one of the greatest leaders in the Bible but who had a hard time delegating to others. He would go to work early in the morning and return home late at night completely exhausted.

Things were so bad that his father in law had to intervene! Through his coaching, Moses ended up selecting seventy leaders who could help him carry some of his work load, which allowed him to not only be more effective at what he did but to also have time for his family.

'Pastor M is a leadership coach, author and senior pastor at Mavuno church. Follow him on twitter @muriithiw or like his Facebook page, 'Pastor _M'

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