Leading is hard! Any type of responsibility is hard. I have three younger kids. Two boys and a girl. They are beautiful, but parenting them is difficult. One of the hardest parts of parenting is the thousands of books out there on parenting the right way. Which one is it? What’s the best way to be responsible about anything?
I’ve been thinking a lot about legacy and leading past your time. What I mean by “leading past your time” is leading after you think or society tells you your time is up. In a culture or society where retirement and quick ease is the goal, we need more leaders to keep leading even when they think their time is up.
The biggest lie of leadership in the world is that older leaders need to get out of the way. It’s a lie from Satan. Here is what happens when the more seasoned leaders completely step out of the way.
*We have young, instant success, under-30 leaders who are training other leaders with much more experience. Dumb success doesn’t equal understanding and wisdom. This isn’t blog about false successes, but that definitely plays a role in the problems in organizations today.
*We have young leaders losing steam or confidence because they are making the same mistakes that the leaders did before them. Dumb success catches up to them. We need to find redemption in our mistakes through helping others avoid the same mistakes.
*We only grow wide and not deep. Take a minute and read the parable of the sower in Mark 4. That’s a great description of how easily surface growth can dwindle. Success and growth need to be rooted in a way that lasts.
The best way to grow your organization is through legacy. Legacy takes time and people who have stuck around.
See you Sunday,
Michael