Measurements of Success We have certain accepted measurements of what
constitutes leadership success in various fields. Here are some examples:
Industry executive: the number of products produced and sold
Salesperson: the achievement or exceeding of sales goals and quotas
Politician: election to office
Leader of religious congregation: the number of members who attend the church
Investor: the level of return on the money invested Athlete: the number of races won or goals achieved General: the number of battles won
Surgeon: the number of successful operations completed Teacher: the number of students with high grade point averages
Are these outcomes true or complete measurements of successful leadership? As we have seen, it is possible to sincerely, zealously, and efficiently do an excellent job on the wrong thing and therefore fail. In the story above, my employee was not effective because, even though he did a
good thing, he did not do the right thing. He was busy but not effective, active but not progressive.
How does a person know he is doing the right thing? The right thing is something that fulfills his purpose. Purpose is the original intent or predetermined result for an individual. It is the expected end.
It is imperative that you know and understand the purpose of something before assuming responsibility in a task. Where purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable, and precious time, energy, and resources are wasted. In any discussion of effective leadership, therefore, it is necessary that we clarify the primary purpose of leadership, for in its primary purpose is found its definition of success.
A Leader’s Lasting Influence
In chapter two, I described leadership as “the capacity to influence others through inspiration, generated by a passion, motivated by a vision, birthed from a conviction, produced by a purpose.” In this chapter, we will explore the lasting influence leaders should have on others.
The Leader’s Legacy
It is my conviction that the ultimate purpose of leadership in any endeavor—whether it is business, religion, politics, sports, medicine, education, or another area—is not the
accomplishment of goals or the achievement of quotas but rather the leader’s legacy through his successor. Leadership is
concerned more about people than products, more about mankind than money. True leadership is measured by the people you “produce.” Otherwise, after you pass on from this generation, your vision could die with you. Consider the following scenario.
Cheryl worked for a flower-delivery chain store, but she had the dream of opening her own flower shop. She was motivated by the vision of providing beautiful but affordable
arrangements for families and small businesses. Her creative talents, combined with her business sense and accounting skills, made her well situated to start a small business. After careful planning, she left her job, executed her business plan, and recruited support staff. Others caught her excitement, and she hired a team of young people eager to learn from her experience and skills. Her business caught on and grew, and she was both successful and fulfilled in her work.
Cheryl was so intent on perpetuating her dream, however, that she kept her hand in every aspect of the company—from the smallest detail to the largest decision—even after five and then ten years. She insisted on creating all the designs, which her employees merely carried out. Few of their ideas were accepted. Her original team of eager workers grew discouraged at their lack of training and responsibility. When they discovered they would never really be able to learn the business, they left to find jobs elsewhere. This hurt Cheryl’s feelings, but she determined to hire others to take their places.
She couldn’t really understand why there was a continual turnover in her staff, but she enjoyed the success of her
company, even while putting in necessarily long hours. Her company’s success gave her a sense of personal worth.
When it finally came time for Cheryl to retire, she realized that all her employees were fresh out of high school and had no in-depth knowledge of flowers or overall business expertise.
They had no experience with designing arrangements, ordering supplies, or accounting. Her own children had gone into other occupations because they hadn’t had an opportunity to learn the business, either. Though Cheryl tried to interest them, they now had their own careers. She couldn’t find anyone else who shared her vision for the company and wanted to carry on her individualized approach. Her prospective buyers all wanted chain-store franchises that used predetermined flower arrangements. In the end, she sold her shop to a buyer who wanted to use her storefront, equipment, and materials to expand his own large franchise. To Cheryl, her life’s work was lost the moment she finalized the sale.
Cheryl wanted to create a successful business that would last beyond her lifetime, but she didn’t realize that to perpetuate vision, leaders must transfer leadership to others.
Whether or not her physical business lasted more than a generation, she would have invested her vision of
individualized service and creativity in the lives of her younger employees, and it would have lived on in them.
Again, this principle of leadership transfer is true in any leadership context, whether it is in a business, government, church, nonprofit organization, or even a family.
The Greatest Investment
The greatest investment in leadership is not in things but in people. Even though we are necessarily involved in a variety of activities to fulfill our visions, we as leaders must ask, “Whom am I investing in to produce better leaders in the future and after my generation?” Let me reemphasize that the most valuable investment anyone can make is in another person, not in a piece of property or equipment. People who intend to extend their lives through projects will ultimately fail.
Jesus Christ never built a building, and He never produced a product. He created people. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). He changed the course of history, and the leaders He trained were said to have
“turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6 nkjv). Creating leaders is the ultimate purpose of leadership. I hope you will be stirred up to refocus your interests in regard to your priority in leadership. No matter how great your vision, it is important to produce visionaries to carry it on. Your goal is not to amass followers but to train leaders.
To fully understand this ultimate purpose of leadership, we must explore how the role of follower developed and what the objective of those functioning as followers should be. This objective is also the goal of leadership.
The Origin of Followers
As we noted previously, when God created human beings,
He clearly established His purpose for them when He declared,
“Let them rule over…all the earth” (Genesis 1:26). This command designated both male and female as God’s agents to rule, govern, control, and manage His creation. He declared their leadership ability and responsibility.
In this regard, let’s review God’s principle of potential.
Whatever God calls for, He provides for. God’s command that man rule the planet established the fact that He had placed within man the capacity and potential to fulfill this assignment.
The assignment is evidence that the potential and ability to lead are within all of us. Again, you were created to lead: you possess the capacity to be a leader within the sphere of purpose for which you were born. God did not create followers;
He created leaders.
So, where did followers come from?
Recall that man’s violation of his Creator’s laws and principles resulted in his internal corruption and the loss of God’s Spirit within him. Consequently, he lost his position because man was created to be a leader led by the Spirit of God; therefore, that which he was created to rule over began to dominate him. He became a slave to his environment and was unable to fulfill his original purpose.
Man’s loss of position also opened the door for human beings to dominate one another. Those who were stronger, cleverer, more intelligent, more privileged, or more manipulative began to use others for their own purposes. Again, in His
original plan and purpose, the Creator never intended for there to be some people who are always leaders and others who are always followers or “subordinates” among men. We were all intended to exercise His authority and dominion as a corporate entity on earth, working together as each fulfilled his unique purpose and assignment.
We can live according to our original intent because God enacted a restoration plan to recover man’s position and to train him once again for leadership. This restoration plan involved the life, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, through whom God’s Spirit is again made available to human beings.
Stages of Leadership Development
In light of the above truths, it is important to understand the following when exploring the purpose of leadership:
Maintaining followers or subordinates is not the goal of leadership. Many in leadership positions today believe that their leadership should be measured by how many people look to or depend on them. They boast in the fact that they are in great demand by their followers, and they actually consider this to be evidence of their effectiveness. Usually, quite the opposite is true.
Many of these leaders use the dependency of their followers to prop up their insecurity and stroke their egos.
They feed on the needs of others and therefore implement programs and systems that perpetuate this dependency. In
contrast, as we saw in the chapter on empowering others, true leadership guides followers into discovering themselves and inspires them to be what they were created to be. The ultimate goal of leadership is to train followers to become leaders and to lead people to independence and then interdependence.
This principle is seen throughout creation. God created everything to experience three phases of life development:
1. Dependence: Every living thing—whether it is the fruit whose stem is connected to the branch of the tree or the human embryo who is attached to his mother’s womb—begins life dependent on its source.
2. Independence: Every living thing must mature to a stage at which it detaches itself from its source and expresses its own individuality and identity.
The fruit ripens and falls from the tree; the embryo develops into a baby, leaves his mother’s womb, grows up, and becomes independent of his parents.
3. Interdependence: After independence, every living thing is responsible for contributing to the ongoing development and replenishment of its species. It produces the seeds of reproduction on which the entire species relies to continue.
A human being can be truly interdependent only after he has become independent. When you have discovered yourself
and your unique purpose and identity, then you can fully contribute to the lives of others. The true nature of leadership is to lead people from dependence into independence and then to inspire them to interdependence.
Creating Other Leaders
The ultimate goal of true leaders, then, is not to perpetuate followers but to help create other leaders. The purpose of leadership is to inspire every follower to become a leader and fulfill his potential.
Reducing Dependency
The true leader measures his success and effectiveness by the diminishing degree of his followers’ dependency on him.
The less they need him, the more effective he is.
This principle is seen throughout Scripture; it continually manifests itself in God’s encounters with humanity. God has placed within everyone the capacity to be a leader within the context of his or her purpose in life. The writer of the book of Hebrews told those whom he was helping to train, “Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!” (Hebrews 5:12). He expected them to become leaders who would then train others to be leaders.
Releasing Others’ Potential Jesus expressed His anticipation of the transition from follower to leader on many occasions. He told His disciples, “I
tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father”
(John 14:12–13). These words indicate that His purpose for training His disciples was to teach them how to be responsible leaders.
In John 20:21, Jesus declared to His followers, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” In Matthew 28:18–19, He stated, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”
Jesus obviously did not see authority as permission to lord it over others or to wield power in the affairs of men. Rather, He saw it as a vehicle to allow others the freedom to develop and reach their full potential. He employed the disciples so He could deploy their leadership abilities.
Realizing the True Nature of a Leader’s Worth Jesus clearly stated His philosophy of the purpose of leadership when He said, “I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor [God’s Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7). Did He say it was for their good that He was going away? This seems like a very strange thing for a leader to say. The average leader thinks in the opposite way: I don’t want to leave this position. I’m not going to let anyone take it from me. The ultimate proof of Jesus’ success as a leader was the fact that He left. He saw effective leadership as the ability
to release the potential of others and to inspire them to fulfill that potential.
Most leaders have become so attached to their positions that they have allowed these positions to become synonymous with their worth and value. This is what happened in the story of Cheryl. She failed to help her employees develop their own potential because she thought she was the only one who could fill her position, and because she relied on her position for her sense of self-worth.
True leaders separate their self-worth from their positions.
They do not confuse their value with their professions or their self-esteem with their assignments. They are always aware that assignments are dispensable but worth is permanent because it comes from the Creator. This is why they don’t mind giving over an assignment to someone else. They know they don’t lose their worth or their purpose when they give a particular responsibility over to others.
A lack of leadership transfer is a problem that can be found in all areas of life—political, religious, civic, business, and family. Because transferring leadership is one of the weakest areas of leadership practice, there are few real-life examples for us to draw from. One of the main reasons for this is that people feel as if they are “giving up” their leadership when they transfer authority to others.
What we need to realize is that we do not give up our leadership. We give it over. If you give it up, it’s as if you have
lost something. Giving it over means you have continued something.
Several good examples from the Scriptures of those who gave over their leadership are Moses, whose successor was Joshua; Paul, whose successor and “true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2) was Timothy; and, of course, Jesus Christ, who entrusted the leadership of His brand-new church to Peter and the other disciples after He returned to God the Father in heaven.
Joshua had served as Moses’ right-hand man for forty years. When it came time for Moses to die and Joshua to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, “the Lord said to Moses,
‘Now the day of your death is near. Call Joshua and present yourselves at the Tent of Meeting, where I will commission him.’ So Moses and Joshua came and presented themselves at the Tent of Meeting” (Deuteronomy 31:14). Moses was still alive when Joshua was commissioned as his successor and placed in position before all the Israelites. Everyone knew that he was now in charge. After Moses’ death, “the Lord said to Joshua…: ‘As I was with Moses, so I will be with you’”
(Joshua 1:1, 5).
Paul expressed the leadership principle of transferring and releasing authority to others when he told Timothy, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:2).
Jesus passed authority to Peter when He told him, “Feed my sheep” and “Feed my lambs.” (See John 21:15–17.) After Jesus transferred authority, the whole organization grew under Peter after he received the Holy Spirit, of whom Jesus had said, “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26).
Recall also what Jesus did when He was on the cross. He looked down and saw His mother, and He knew someone needed to take His place as her earthly provider. His close friend and disciple John was there also, and He said to both of them, “‘Dear woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple,
‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home” (John 19:26–27). Jesus gave responsibility for her protection and provision over to John; through this act, He was protecting His household. Right to the end, He was thinking in leadership terms. Many people don’t realize that this incident was a powerful act of leadership. He handed over His “business” to Peter, but He handed over the care of His family to John. Jesus was very conscious of mentoring. He was a true leader.
Two interesting examples of leadership mentoring and transfer in the contemporary world are Billy Graham and Nelson Mandela. Billy Graham successfully passed the leadership of The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to his son Franklin after mentoring him and clearly identifying his successor to those in his organization. Nelson Mandela effectively transferred the presidency of South Africa to Thabo Mbeki, his
successor whom he had been mentoring. This occurred without a coup d’etat and all the problems that might have accompanied the exchange of power in the second democratic election following the end of apartheid.
Promoting “Greater Things”
Jesus said it would be better for Him to go away because otherwise the Counselor, God’s Spirit, could not come to take His place. The Counselor came to promote and expand, on behalf of Jesus, the work that He had begun. Many people are being held up in fulfilling their purposes because others will not help them develop into leaders and will not make room for them. It is very important that we fully understand the philosophy of leadership transfer. If we do not fulfill our purpose of training leaders, then those who come after us cannot do “greater things.”
Again, Jesus Christ was not attached to His position on earth, and He saw the transfer of that position to His disciples
—His leaders-in-training—as progress. In John 14:12, when He said, “Anyone who has faith in me…will do even greater things…because I am going to the Father,” He was indicating that He felt His staying on earth would hinder the leadership progress of His disciples. In John 16:7, when He stated, “It is for your good that I am going away,” He was implying, “If I stay in this position, it will be a disadvantage to you.” True leaders understand that the purpose of leadership is to prepare others to take their positions.