Issue No. 123 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a book on leadership succession. The author writes, “You cannot lead an organization until you know its story.” And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Successions Begin Now
I’ve never spent much time worrying about my own legacy and have urged other CEOs and leaders to focus instead on faithfulness and fruitfulness—and then let the legacies take care of themselves. Yet everyone leaves a legacy. Today President Bush exits and President Obama enters. Pundits will talk endlessly now about legacies. We should pray for both leaders.
This week’s book on the leader’s legacy reminds us that “succession begins before we assume a position of leadership, not when we get ready to leave it.” Author David L. McKenna speaks from the trenches—33 years as president of three educational institutions. I enthusiastically recommend his book on the “succession cycle” to leaders young and old. He’s wise. He’s amazingly transparent (including laugh-out-loud stories on himself). He speaks with authority.
When is it time to leave? How do you bless your successor? When do you announce your exit—and what are the pitfalls in making your exit? McKenna has a memorable story for almost every key point of the succession cycle. He’s widely read—and the books he references will tempt you to dig deeper.
He quotes President Harry Truman who reportedly said, “If I ever get the idea that the band is playing ‘Hail to the Chief’ for me rather than for the Office of the President, we are all in trouble.” McKenna sets a high standard for humble leaders in office and even more so after they leave. (When revisiting Seattle Pacific University, where he served as president, he introduced himself to the receptionist of McKenna Hall, named after him. “How do you spell the name?” the receptionist asked him!)
He quotes Jeffrey Sonnenfeld’s book, The Hero’s Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire, and describes four kinds of exiting leaders: Monarch, General, Ambassador and Governor. It’s worth thinking about your exit style from day one. He has an excellent chapter on corporate lifecycles and the kinds of leaders best suited for each cycle. He also includes Peter Drucker’s insightful questions for leaders: 1) What needs to be done? 2) Can I do it? and 3) Do I want to do it? (It’s often all about passion.)
To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: The Leader’s Legacy, by David L. McKenna.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Describe a leadership succession that, in your opinion, modeled the best of what outgoing and incoming leaders should emulate.
2) Write your tombstone epitaph for the legacy you’d like to leave.
Reading Your Culture - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
One of the big ideas in the Culture Bucket, Chapter 8, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to understand your corporate culture—and to ensure that team members live out the core values. In David McKenna’s book (above) he writes, “Christian leaders read the culture of their organizations in order to understand what it is, why it is, and where it is going.”
His insights are arresting in his culture chapter. As the new president of Asbury Seminary, he left early from the school’s annual gathering of 1,000 pastors and spouses to attend the President’s Prayer Breakfast—a perk he had enjoyed at for 14 years. But the pastors at Asbury resented his early exit. “When I left for Washington, D.C.,” he writes, “they felt abandoned.” McKenna admitted he had failed to read the school’s culture.
What are you failing to read? To learn more, read Chapter 8, The Culture Bucket, in my book. To download Worksheet #8.1: "When your culture and values are crystal clear, your new people will embrace them with confidence," visit the Culture Bucket page of my website.
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