Page 229 - The Bible On Leadership

Leadership Development 215

board, nor did David keep his office in the palace when Solomon ac-
ceded to the throne. They got out of the way.
Jack Welch promised, ‘‘The day I go home, I’ll disappear from the
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place and the person who comes in will do it their way.’’ It’s hard
enough following in a giant’s footsteps without having those enormous
shoes still hovering over your head as well.
Ecclesiastes 2:21 reminds us that succession is particularly difficult
when ‘‘a man must leave all ...to someone who has not worked for
it.’’ That’s why it’s important to give the new leaders developmental
assignments so that they can prove themselves on the battlefield and
earn the right to the position.
But surrender of power can still be difficult for many leaders. Henry
Ford rejected almost every recommendation of his son, Edsel, to the
point where the discouraged Edsel developed a cancerous stomach
ulcer. At Edsel’s funeral, his bitter widow approached her father-in-law
and said, ‘‘You killed my husband.’’ William Paley of CBS fired his
successors, and Peter Grace one-upped Paley by firing his successor
from his deathbed on trumped-up harassment charges. 25
As we’ve noted, some of the biblical successions were rancorous, too.
David felt heir-apparent Absalom was too aggressive in pushing for the
throne before David was ready to yield it, resulting in a disastrous civil
war and the death of Absalom. But most of these turbulent transitions
were followed by periods of stability and more orderly transitions. No
one transition was disastrous enough to destroy the organization. That’s
because, when push came to shove, most of these leaders came to care
more about the survival of the larger organization than they did about
their own individual achievements or position.
Top executives (both corporate and biblical) have often been known
for their strong egos, without which ‘‘things don’t get done.’’ But as a
wise leader matures, the drive that pushed him to ‘‘make a name for
himself’’ by achieving individual feats yields to a concern for ‘‘genera-
tivity’’—the nurturing of the next generation of leaders. Organizational
survival becomes more important than personal achievement and adula-
tion.
When the torch is not passed in an orderly, planned way (or when it