Are you replacing yourself? A few Keys to succession in leadership

What are some of the most difficult things in leadership?

I would argue that replacing yourself is one of the most challenging parts of leadership- Succession is really really difficult.

Succession, simply the transition of leadership or power, is very difficult for most companies or organizations. Whether a Fortune 50 like GE, Wal-Mart, or Apple; a non-profit like the Red Cross, Focus on the Family, or World Vision; a small startup or family held business; a church of 200 or 10,000; or one of the thousands of mid sized companies across the country. In any case, this is a tough leadership paradigm to get right.

Large companies put millions of dollars into making sure succession is smooth and seemless. Look at Apple- succession from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook has been difficult, and over the last year or so has possibly cost the company billions of dollars in market capitalization, and even more in brand equity. It is a huge issue for the long term health of any company.

Family held businesses or “founder-driven” organizations are really at risk of bad succession plans. Most founders of family held or not for profit organizations can’t let go, and drive everyone crazy around them. Especially in companies that are highly missional- founders are great at starting and building, but usually terrible at letting go and allowing the organization to grow into a second phase of organizational life without them, with a different leader at the helm.

Here in America, we do a really good job of succession when it comes to our President. It is a civil and democratic process. Not the case in other parts of the world, especially in third world and developing countries. Leaders hold onto power and do everything they can to stay in the seat of President or Prime Minister way long after they should be there. Usually because the power of their position corrupts their realities at the deepest levels. I believe this is one of the major issues for these countries- bad succession leads to internal strife, violence and disruptions in growth. These leaders not only hold onto to their power, but fail to develop any other leaders around them to take over.

What about you and your current leadership realities? Whether a team, a company, a non-profit, a church, a family held business, or a Fortune 50, you should be thinking about succession. How are you replacing yourself? If you are not thinking about this, you are neglecting a core part of your responsibility.

A few things to consider:

1. Is it time for you to replace yourself? Have the courage to always leave before you need to or have to.

2. Who are you grooming to step into your role? Start looking and grooming the next leader way sooner than you think you need to.

3. Does the organization or initiative need a fresh perspective and fresh eyes? Most of the time the answer is yes.

4. Power corrupts. Don’t let your power trip end up keeping you from correctly leading the organization into the next season of healthy organizational life.

5. Seek wisdom from inside and outside the organization. Seek counsel from trusted friends and advisors, as well as team members internally who can speak the truth.

6. The legacy of your leadership relies significantly on how well the organization continues to thrive after you are gone. Your replacement is a direct reflection of the quality of your leadership.

What Happens When Someone on Your Team Drops the Ball

The Power of Accountability. Sets the tone in any organization.

So what about when someone completely drops the ball? We all have experienced this as leaders. I know I have. So how do you respond?

You give a big assignment or project to someone on your team, and they lay an egg- totally drop the ball and don’t get it done. We’ve all been there. I know I have…..both as the goat who goofed up, as well as the one in charge trying to figure out how to handle the situation.

So how do you handle it? Let’s look at this situation from both sides, both the one who dropped the ball and the one in charge.

1. As the one who dropped the ball, just own up to it. Don’t make excuses. Be self-policing and self aware. Be accountable. And be mature. And realize that your leader or your boss or the person in charge is trying to figure out how to deal with your mistake or lack of action- lean into that and bring it up first and tell them it won’t happen again. Don’t wait on them to have to confront you. Be proactive. Leaders would always rather find out from you that you laid an egg, vs. finding out from someone else, many times when it’s too late to do anything about it.

Own up. Grow Up. Shut up. And don’t be the goat again.

2. As the leader, four things to think about: 1. confrontation; 2. conversation; 3. restoration; 4. affirmation. Got these from Kevin Myers in a talk he did a couple of years ago at 12 Stone Church. The key on this- confront, and then move on. Get through the confrontation and onto to the conversation and restoration as quick as possible. If you have the right kind of person on your team, they feel terrible anyway, so spend very little time confronting, and way more time on restoration and affirmation.

Reality is, a majority of accountability, both with individuals and with teams, should be built around conversation and affirmation. This is not just telling people they are great. That’s part of it. But instead, affirming this person and your team about where you are going as a team, how you are going to get there, how you are winning, and how they are incredibly important to the success and accomplishments of the team, and accomplishing the mission and vision of the organization. Being accountable to the Vision.

As a leader, DO NOT withhold affirmation. This is so hard. I struggle at this constantly, making sure I am affirming our team and not just confronting.

Assuming you’ve established trust, a strong level of commitment, and a proper corporate culture, then ultimately affirmation is the greatest power and source of strength for team accountability. If all you are doing is confronting and not moving towards conversation and restoration and affirmation, you’ll struggle with team accountability and a culture that is committed and loyal and willing to conquer the hill.

Tough to do this, especially for type A hard charging leaders.

You are a Leader. And you are Responsible. Deal with it.

I get asked all the time by young leaders “how do you handle the responsibility of leading something like Catalyst?” Good question.

Reality is, anyone who leads a Church, leads a company, leads a community, leads a non-profit ministry, leads a team, or even a family feels and knows the pressure of responsibility. And Responsibility is part of Leadership. Always. You’ve heard this before…..”You’re responsible for what happens…..Don’t screw up!” Right!!! We hear this all the time from our parents, from our boss, from our boards, from our friends, from our spouses.

So how do I correctly live with the pressure of Responsibility and Leadership? For me it always begins and ends around the issue of stewardship. The whole idea of stewardship relates back to the concept of watching over something for someone else. Taking care of something you don’t own. Ultimately, stewardship begins and ends with a very clear understanding of how you view your role. Are you the owner, or simply the steward for the owner? Is this mine, or am I just taking care of it while the owner is gone? This will help you shape the framework for what correct Biblical stewardship looks like. Whether it’s your role in managing your time, your role in cultivating a dream, your role in leading an organization, your role in managing your money, and more.

So here are a few thoughts on Stewardship, and how it relates to leading whatever movement, organization, community, tribe, or team that you’ve been currently given.

1. Hold things with an open hand, palms down. Picture that one in your mind. Versus the mindset of holding things with a closed fist, palms up.

2. You don’t really own it. God does. All of it.

3. You don’t deserve the credit. It’s not you. God deserves the credit. All of it.

4. It’s not about you. Don’t be naive. You are NOT the reason for the mission and vision of the organization or community you are leading. Those who you are serving are. Those who are part of the movement and community are most important. Embrace that one.

5. You must step up when needed. It’s not about you, but as the leader the buck has to stop with you. Make decisions, bring clarity, encourage communication, and don’t play the blame game. Step up and lead.

6. Be generous. Be others focused. Always. And not just when it helps you. Creating wins for others is more fun, and ultimately very strategic.

7. Building a movement is not your job. That’s the work of God. Your role is to be prepared to lead one if God sees fit. Thanks to my friend Perry Noble for this nugget.

8. Model the vision and mission. But don’t become a barrier to get to it. Let your team carry it, and be in the limelight, and get the credit.

9. You are not the first. And you won’t be the last. Others have done this before, and there will be others after you. Understand your role in the generational impact chain.

How Known are You by You?

For leaders, one of the hardest things we have to do is self-assessment. We have a much easier time giving feedback and positive criticism and providing helpful advice to those we lead, but being able to honestly assess where WE each are individually as leaders is tough. But, self-assessment is one of the most important things we can do to make sure we continue to grow and get better.

A few thoughts on this:

1. You are never too good at what you do or who you are to not need honest feedback from yourself, your peers, your family, and your friends. Seek it out constantly.

2. Your ability to correctly provide a self-assessment is many times a reflection of your humility and appropriate self-confidence as a leader. The more humble you are, typically the more self-aware you are. The more arrogant you are, typically the less self-aware you are.

3. Can you and do you laugh at yourself consistently? Are you taking yourself way too seriously? If so, chill out. You’re not that important and you need to relax. Sometimes the more platform and position we get, the more serious we take ourselves. Don’t.

4. As a follower of Jesus, we MUST rely on the Holy Spirit for correction and discernment on areas of our lives where we need to improve and grow in maturity.

5. At the end of the day, no one really enjoys self-assessment. But you can be CONFIDENT that those around you on your team, your friends, your peers and your family are way more aware of you and your style and the things you can improve on. As a leader, you have to be willing to swallow your pride and look yourself in the mirror and correctly assess who you are. A more self-aware leader becomes a way more Confident and followable leader.

6. No one wants to work FOR or AROUND a leader who doesn’t understand who they really are. Many times these leaders lack a clear sense of reality. My friend Ken Coleman calls this REALITY DEPRIVATION SYNDROME (RDS). Unfortunately, many leaders live in this world, and end up making decisions based on their false intuitions and assumptions because they don’t have a clear sense of who they are and how they are viewed by their peers and what reality really looks like.

7. Know very clearly your areas of strength and areas of weakness. The more personality tests and self-assessment tests you can take, the better. Strengthsfinder, Myers-Briggs, Right Path Assessment, Personality tests, etc. All of these are helpful in giving you a perspective of the type of person you are, and the areas you need to be more aware of that can become problem areas.

8. Once you understand who you are, create a game plan for constant improvement. For example, one of my tendencies is to use cynicism as a source of gaining power and making others feel weak. I am VERY aware of this tendency I have, and have tried to create some barriers in my life that will harness this. Another example for me is that I will end up doing everything myself, instead of naturally delegating or allowing others on our team to take on responsibility. Because of this, I’ve had to be very intentional about making sure I don’t micromanage. Another tendency I have is to be way more intense than I need to be. Because of this, I’ve tried to give my team permission to tell me when I’m in the “intense” zone. It’s still something I find myself doing, but am very self-aware of this and work constantly to improve.

6 Ways Coaches are Great Leaders

My dad coached high school football in Bristow, Oklahoma for almost 30 years. They won three state championships, played in the state championship game another three times, won district titles basically every year, and in the 1980′s were one of the winningest high school programs in the state. Growing up in Bristow meant high school football.

I asked him what makes a good coach. Here were a few of his responses:

1. First and foremost, they have to be great leaders. Players and other coaches want to follow them. They will make the tough decisions, and also have no problem surrounding themselves with other coaches who are more talented than they are.

2. Ability to motivate- they have enthusiasm, and are able to pull the best out of kids. They also create great camaraderie among their staff.

3. Create a great program- great coaches carry with them a certain aura; they are incredibly competent, but also have the “IT” factor. People want to be around them. Kids want to do their best for them, parents want their kids playing for them, the school embraces them, and the community loves them. They create a winning tradition and other schools don’t like to play them.

4. Competent- they know X’s and O’s. They are highly organized, lead well, and skilled at their profession.

5. Never complacent- great coaches don’t allow for complacency to set in once they’ve established a winning tradition or system. And with each year they find new ways to raise the bar and make sure everyone are creating new goals and getting better constantly.

6. Teacher at their core- there really is a connection between a great coach and great teacher. Coaches love to teach- the best coaches can take a player and raise their level of skill and ability because they not only can motivate them, but also can instruct them on how to be better.

10 Challenges for your Team for 2013

Here are 10 specific challenges I would recommend you make to your team this year. To put in place and act out on a regular basis. These are based on the challenges we’ve instilled on our Catalyst team the last couple of years.

1. Authentic. Be Real. Human. approachable. Guard against hubris.

2. No sideways energy. Communicate. Focus. Guard against silos and wasted energy.

3. Stewardship. Each of us embracing and understanding our role in what we’ve been given and required to manage and uphold through the platform we’ve been given by God to steward. Not just the leader.

4. Expertise. see myself as an expert. Individual responsibility and organizational responsibility.

5. Receive what we create. Become our own customer. Guard against the mundane. If you don’t like the product you are creating, you have a problem.

6. Guard against cynicism. Behind the curtain we have to guard against this. Fight it at every turn. And call it out if we see it.

7. Excellence. We are the best in the world. Confidence not arrogance. Act like it. Maintain a standard. Guard against being lazy and pessimistic.

8. Serve one another. Jump in and help. Get it done mentality. Not just when the “lights are on” (sports reference), but all the time. Be willing to do whatever it takes.

9. Protect and maintain a “make it happen” culture. Guard against the phrase “it’s not my job.” and guard against creating clicks.

10. Get better every day. Guard against complacency. Make it your goal to constantly improve and take your game to the next level.