Leading Beyond Your Leadership (2)

The CEOS School Podcast

Your leadership success is largely a function of the success of your successor or the people you groomed to succeed you. This is why the ultimate responsibility of leadership is grooming future leaders. You must assume the responsibility of identifying and grooming leaders who will ultimately take over from you. Grooming people who will take over from you is a must not a should do responsibility. It's your responsibility to groom all the boys and girls hanging around you to become as powerful as you, even more powerful. You become a true leader through the leadership of your boys and girls. You cannot leave the future soundness, strength and continuity of your family, department, organization, community, state, or nation to chance. You cannot afford to let your great accomplishments and accumulated skills, knowledge, wisdom, understandings, and experience that took you virtually a lifetime to acquire go to waste. It will be a grave error if an unprepared person succeeds you and ruins, devalues, or neglects virtually everything you spent your lifetime working to create. Certainly, you want your vision, good works, and all that to keep speaking long after you have gone. However, the only way your good works can keep speaking long after you have gone is to prepare your successors and prepare for your own transition to a new role in this life or a place in the following one. Your number one duty is to ensure that you leave your legacy in people, not in bank accounts, buildings or tombstones. Your success is really a function of the success of those who take over from you. Successful succession makes certain progression or extension. True leadership is about progression or dovetailing. You should identify several young people with potential and groom them for leadership. It is imperative that you groom people to step into your shoes at the end of your tenure in any position. Your prepared successor will uphold your wonderful works or deeds and even take them to greater heights.