thank you for joining us for another power-packed message from dr. Myles Munroe provided by Monroe global incorporated and Monroe global comm we transform followers into leaders and leaders into agents of change we hope that this message is a blessing to you as you advance your life and discover your purpose now let's go into the message succession the greatest leadership failure succession the greatest leadership failure our focus will be on the danger of losing your desk your lesson legacy the danger of losing your legacy I don't think that we were born to live for one lifetime we were born to live to make sure we never die I want you to think about the statement you were born to live so that you can live forever and the only way to make sure you live in a way that you live forever is to leave a legacy for example we cannot forget Abraham because Abraham left Isaac and Isaac left Esau and Jacob Jacob left 12 sons and those sons left sons in other words we don't remember their houses where they lived but we remember the people they invested in and so leadership has more to do with legacy than has to do with projects and that's what this focus today is on succession I want to begin with a few statements that you might want to jot down I call this the obligation of leadership the greatest obligation of true leadership is to transfer your deposit to the next generation that's your greatest obligation it's not just good enough for you to transfer a title or to transfer a facility a building but it's more important to transfer your knowledge your experience your lessons your life lessons to transfer the values that have helped you succeed giving them to the next generation is more important than giving them money wealth and so leadership has more to do with taking what made you what you are and giving it to someone else that cannot happen without mentoring secondly leadership success is measured by the success of your successful which means that the person or the persons that you invested in should be more effective than you were in continuing the vision the dream the idea that you either started or you inherited this is the true obligation of leadership now the word obligation is strong obligation means that this is a responsibility you have to the future I know that all of you like I was have been measuring your leadership success in terms of the size of a building you built or maybe the size of your salary or the house you used to build from that salary or a type of car that you drive but just remember that all of those things are decaying daily which means that if your success is built on those things that your success is eroding daily that takes me then to re defining what we talked about in our first session we have some of our students around us who were not here last evening so I wanted to for their sake give you a definition again of succession what is succession we talked about this that succession is the perpetuation of purpose purpose is your assignment succession is protecting your assignment beyond your lifetime succession has to do with preserving all of your hard work after your retirement from that position or even death so let's look at another definition then succession is and you might want to write this down for the sake of you teaching others succession is the effective transfer conveyance and transition to of the leader of his purpose his intent his passion his character his standards values and morals and even his qualities of leadership to succeeding generations that's succession succession is a very major experience that list is long in that sentence succession means that you are transferring to another generation of leaders first your vision and that's a hard thing to do that means you must transfer your brain and everything it contains to another person that takes a lot of intimate time together it takes a lot of vulnerability for them to explore the inner parts of yourself you would find that when you study leadership from the context of who I consider to be the greatest leader of all time Jesus Christ you will note that he kept three people with him all the time he had twelve but there were three he decided to choose as intimate mentees sometime he would say to the 12 you nine stay here you three come with me and he would take them to an experience that the others didn't have there are people who you want to mentor who you have to take with you into environments that others can't go because mentoring has to do with exposure to your vulnerability so they can understand your heart you may maybe be intrigued why and we'll talk about this tomorrow but why he chose Peter to take on his massive organization because he exposed him to his weaknesses even he's he he was the one who he would say things like can you stay with me can you stay up with me that was a sign of him giving them his fear or his anxiety are there people in your organization who you take in to private parts of your life and say you know I'm struggling with this succession is normally trusted to those who know your strengths and your weaknesses for them to get past those objections in your life into your vision you have to expose yourself succession you have to convey your passion how do you transfer passion to someone you got to encourage them to fall in love it what you love and you'll be amazed that some people around you love the wrong thing they love your power they love your position they love your title they love your influence and that's why they with you they want that these are not good prospects for succession because they love their own things they need to fall in love with your passion the thing that wakes you up in the morning if they never catch you that then they will never be a successful successful so succession is very unknown in leadership this is why we are dealing with it this entire week now we talk about succession and success I mentioned this last evening if you notice the word succession has the word success in it and can you imagine that every leader wants to be successful but he never thinks that succession is success we think in terms of projects and products and bottom line and profits but we don't think in terms of people buildings don't succeed you equipment doesn't succeed you its people and some of you are getting a little older as soon as you pass 50 you better start doubling up your time on succession because you really ain't gonna be here too much longer no matter how much you think about that so we must begin to consider what is success and according to this very word success is succession here's another way I put it success has to do with three things we talked about in last night first movement by the way if you were to study the etymology of the word success you'll find these three words success is from the concept of movement continuity and follow after if had nothing to do with money and power and position and equipment and buildings and titles it has to do with movement you are successful if your vision outlives you through another person you're successful if we forget you after you die no matter how great your accomplishments were you were a failure you should measure your success by the people you left so succession has to do it continuity and this is why if you don't invest in mentoring people you will be a failure this is the reason why most of us are struggling even with how to define success to succeed means to follow or to go after so if you say I want to succeed in this project your focus should be on the people who will continue it who will follow after you finish your part this is the danger of losing your legacy succession preserves success say there with me isn't that incredible succession preserves success think this thing but the words all that you accomplished can be destroyed by someone who comes after you you wasted an entire life because what you built is handed over to someone who has no interest in what you did I mean that shouldn't make you depressed think about that and some of you are 60 70 years old already and you've done a wonderful thing but my concern is will it outlast you and the only way to guarantee that is succession all right so true leadership is about continuity this is the heart of leadership about continuity I am working on a manuscript right now because of a contract with a company and they flew down to see me because they heard one of my sessions on succession it's a pretty big secular company in New York and they said we have never heard any one present this material in leadership as we've heard you do so they said you big contract I prayed for about 10 seconds and signed it and one of the things that they mentioned to me when they were discussing the whole contract was this point I made in my series leadership is about continuity they said no one talks about that everybody is trying to make it to the top but they say you're talking about life after the top there's life beyond the pinnacle greatness in leadership has to do with continuity will this last beyond me I also thought it would be good to talk about the priority of leadership and this is very important information number one the greatest act of leadership is mentoring that should be your priority succession is a production of mentoring it's a result of mentoring if you decide that you are going to be successful in providing a successor then you must make mentoring your priority the mentoring is hard work what is mentoring for the sake of those who joined us mentoring is to serve as a model an advisor a counselor a guide a tutor and an example to another person with the view of producing one greater than yourself please write the entire sentence down the last part of it is more important mentoring has to do with making people greater than yourself now that's not too normal for humans if you suffer from an inferiority complexes and there's one right behind you now don't look you normally need people to be less than you to protect your superiority in other words insecurity always needs a inferiority to exist if you are not secure in your own stealth then you always need people around you worshipping you that's why leaders who need large entourage is have people taking care of them are normally suffering from ego problems security issues you don't leave legacies if you are worshiped sometimes the folks who worship you are glad you died they finally get to rest do you know who Jesus called his closest assistants matter of fact he had to correct on one time he says you are not servants you are my friends Wow tell some readers that today as they should do that with their servants he says I wish to measure friends he says I have told you everything I want you to know what I know mentoring has to do with making people better than you so that when you leave you could take the credit for the greatness can you imagine you work 40 years building a company building an organization building a department in an organization I mean you really worked all your life does your life's work and then it dies with you that's a tragedy what you want is the next generation of leadership to take what you built and make it ten times better because they gonna still say that's your work am i right you will always be the founder or the or the author I would rather be you know like Walmart wall you know mr. Walton he'll always be famous he transferred his dream to some people who continue his legacy he started with one store in a small little town when I read his story I was very intrigued Jeana Walmart started his wife sent him to the store to buy something and when he went to the store the store didn't have it and he went to four the stores he said just to make any sense and they lived in kind of like like in a small little farm country town so he had to travel to other towns just to find its thing he'd like why can't we have everything in one place by the way that teaches you what I talk about in my books you know business is a product of problems whenever there's a problem there's a business so unemployment is not your problem your problem is you can't find problems your being here in this room today is because I am solving a problem it's a leadership issue and that's what brings you here so if you want to live beyond yourself your goal is to make those who you mentor greater than you and that takes a lot of security doesn't it a lot of self-confidence for you two to be working on someone to replace you and make them better than you that's the perfect leadership attitude words of Jesus Christ again it is better for you that I leave because if I don't leave you will not do greater works than have done his attitude was I want you to outshine me because I will get the credit we try to make sure no one shines brighter than us and when they attempt to we snuff them out keep them back hold them down make sure they never have opportunity to grow and expand we even make sure that they don't go to the seminars to grow we want to go ourselves so we tell him a resource manager let me go well if you a great leader you let your staff go and you stay invest in there very important there are three phases of life I want you to think about when we talk about succession and mentoring a of a little baby here you know all of us in life begin dependent so the first phase of life is always dependent everybody's a dependence everything created on this earth begins dependent whether it's a fruit clinging to a tree whether it's a baby calf or a baby pop whale hanging on to his mother's nipples or whether it's a baby in the womb feeding on the nutrients of a placenta all of us begin dependent that means we need mentoring you need to be trained and all of you who want to be great leaders must first be dependent the second phase of life is independence independence is maturity of self where you become capable of expressing yourself and having your own individual identity that's independence and everything goes through that the fruit eventually falls from the tree matter of fact you don't even need to pick it it will mature itself and then naturally become independent it'll fall every animal becomes independent every every tree becomes independent from its host and so do we as humans so even in leadership training you have to give people the privilege of independence after you've trained them you give them leverage to experience their own failures test them let them try their own wits which give them opportunity to to express their own wings stop smothering people stop wanting to make all their decisions after you give them delegated power allow them to make their own mistakes knowing that you there to have them correct them this is independence Leadership Development and then the last one is the most important and that is interdependent we don't think about this much but the highest form of freedom is interdependence now notice the word dependence is still there but its interdependence which means you contribute now to the ongoing development of your species or you reproduce after your kind interdependence is when the person you trained can now train others interdependence is when that person comes back to you and starts feeding you in the dependents means that you've done such a good job in your mentoring that the person who you transferred the power to begins to inspire you they're given you nutrients back I think for those who are religious people here the Apostle John said something in his in its one of his last books he wrote he says he says your success brings me joy I rejoice in your successes in other words when you become great I feel so good about it it feeds me back allow people to make you proud mentoring and succession is good for you so what is the ultimate goal of leadership then true leadership is always aware that their position is temporary please write this statement down because somehow we get the idea that we are permanent in our positions especially people who are more inclined for religious positions can I suggest you that being a pastor is not a permanent position and religious people think once I'm a pastor I'm always a pastor or they you see titles like apostles and bishops listen don't get trapped because if you never fall in love at a title god can never move you beyond it true leadership is always aware that their position is what temporary you the manager now you ain't management manager forever and when they promote you handle it with a loose glove don't fall in love with any position why you could prevent your own progress sometimes we fall in love with the salary we withhold the possibility of greater salary the goal of leader then is successful passage of power my goal is to transfer the baton successfully that's my goal my goal is not to preserve my position until I die my goal is to transfer it successfully that's true leadership very very serious problem I have to keep reminding myself that to everything there's only a season say let me tell you something you know you you riding high right now and some of the things you're doing you setting yourself up plan life beyond where you are all the time can I repeat this plan life beyond where you are right now all the time don't plan to maintain your life from what you're doing because what you're doing will change people lose their jobs they lose their life because they have their whole life built on their jobs that includes being a pastor you better plan life beyond pastoring you lose your voice they can't throw your the pulpit are you listening to me you better figure out something to do without a voice everything is temporary even Athlete you better never get in an accident leadership is about transferring power so learn how to do it skillfully without begrudging people he has an insight this is a Myles Munroe insight leadership is interesting a true leader does not clone other people in their image so mentoring is not about making a person dress like you talk like you act like you walk like you hold their Bible like you and wear white suit like you that's not leadership that's personality worship leadership doesn't clone people true leaders desire to help other people discover themselves and then to release them to deploy their abilities and their skill in their own generation this is leadership you are going to grow old grow over the smile watching your progenitors succeed you with greatness I remember reading a story in the Bible when I was a young teenager about Jesus sending out his students on a test he gave them a little bit of a Authority it says and they ran out and did some stuff and they were very young I mean he had just met them like maybe a month and he trusted them with power just so they can taste it and see how they react and when they came back they started reporting to him they said we have done this we have done that and this was accomplished and demons were afraid of us and we prayed and sick were healed and they were excited and then the result of that discussion and it like this it says and yes sure rejoiced in his spirit / what they had done do you get excited when your followers outshine you he got excited over their success great leaders don't want to stay write it down that's a good stuff I just gave you okay let me say it again great leaders what don't want a state they don't want to stay they want to get you quickly trained why they got greater things to do remember every position is a trap don't fall in love with a title or a position it's a trap because it traps you by its very nature mentoring and succession is about freedom when I meant to you and give you transfer of power I am free to do some other things only sick leaders don't want to leave a man and a woman without a dream don't want to leave their position because if you had a dream a great dream a big dream an awesome vision you would always know that where you are is not what you saw so you're constantly retraining your replacements constantly all the way a long life you keep training your replacement because you know I am NOT gonna be here here's a thought leadership is about living beyond yourself succession is about life after yourself true leadership is never given to one generation so you always have to think I've got to prepare the next one later on today in a session I'm going to give you some reasons why people don't mental you'll be amazed I'll give to you on we don't mentor for some very serious reasons and you probably a plague with some of them and don't even know it number two leadership that serves only its generation is destined for failure if what you are doing is only for your generation then you are failure already because it will die with you to make sure that your memory lives forever you invest in people not projects my burden and my dream is to see third world leadership grow in advance throughout the world because we keep killing our future leaders by suffocation because products of oppression will always defend their turf because they are insecure when you were a former slave you are afraid to lose a little you gain because you never had anything so you would even kill your own brothers to protect it this is poor philosophy number three our Creator is a generational creator I did a little study on his attitude years ago and I discovered that he never speaks to you and not sound weird but whenever he speaks he ain't talking to you he's talking to your loins he always talks to your line see he when he speaks he's talking to what you carrying not you he would say things like your seed shall be blessed yeah talking to you through you the nation shall be blessed he ain't talking to you he's talking to what you carry he's always thinking beyond you you you just temporary listen stop thinking you're permanent this is not about you it's about the eggs your Karen it's about the sperms you care and that's what this was about he thinks generationally this is why one day to him is like a thousand years let me tell you what we think that may be disturbing us deeply we think that we were born to finish what we started mentoring a succession is the acceptance of the reality that you may not finish what you started you know do not long it took to get the land that God promised Abraham Abraham never got there so when you are a leader you must always think in generations prepare those who will take your place and do it with skill before this week is finished I personally will make sure that you get the skills you need to do that you may wonder why my name is all through this schedule is because God told me don't trust us and nobody else at the moment this is too serious because many leaders in this place today some of you are still gonna die with your name because you haven't been thinking seriously about your replacement greatness number four if your vision dies with you you failed I've seen unfinished churches with grass growing among the concrete why because that leader failed so he was a great preacher people shouted out his messages he's a failure the weeds will always expose you unfinished monuments is a sign of failure because you did not mint or you did not invest in the right thing people and one of the challenges and we're gonna talk about this tomorrow is that most leaders occupy themselves with paper more than people I'm busy against what you mean you busy there's a person who wants to see you so he wonder why why dr.
Monroe so accessible why why are you like - because people are what this is about I want you to remember what I did for you not a letter that I wrote to a business deal you invest in people Jesus never built a building and he can't die now because he built people if your vision dies when you die we won't remember you you better take a lot of photographs if you mentor people they become your photograph every time people see them they'll say you remind me of him people become your evidence that you were here this is mentoring and succession now let me just close with how do you measure leadership how do you measure your success number one the ultimate goal of true leadership is not to maintain followers but to produce leaders the goal of leadership is not to keep people with you but to keep letting them pass through you hopefully to become greater number two true leadership measures its success by the diminishing dependency of its followers this is a very subtle statement read it carefully write it down true leadership is measured as being successful when the dependency of its followers diminishes in other words the less they need you the more effective you are so if you need people to need you and to always be with you and to depend on you you are not a leader you are a parasite with a title you're feeding on people if you are an effective manager then you'll get less need by your staff needing direction they'll come to your office less and sometimes we feel that that's a failure when we don't see them because we somehow measure success by them needing me if you did a good job in training they wouldn't need you some of you passed this your greatest evidence of your ministry is the size of your altar call you are sick you know here you are as a passive in passion for 30 years and the same people keep coming up every Sunday for help you are a fail you should be fired and yet we feel insecure when no one comes to the altar call everybody safe you did a good job everybody's healed brother they said you did a good job don't be depressed if no one responds Oh their dependency is what diminishing matter of fact I love again the spirit of Jesus the great leader he would say to them how long must I be with you look learn this quickly I'm out of here it's better for you that I go away attitude I don't need to depend on me I don't want that as a matter of fact he eventually got to the big transfer one time you know they kept on asking him for stuff he would you know pay the the taxes for them he would you know catch their fish for them he would you know multiply their lunch and all of a sudden one day he said look he said look let me let me talk to you all he says he said look I'm get ready to leave you okay and they're like he said look let not your heart be troubled man if you believe in me who you could see I want to transfer that same belief to my father who you cannot see because I don't want you to depend on me because you could see me deep transfer he said and when I leave he says you no longer ask me anything transfer but you would go to my father and get everything you need in my name he was releasing them from dependency can people live happily while you're on vacation can they run the office and even forget you and stop calling in every five minutes to see what they do it that's a sign of a poor leader greatness in leadership diminishes dependency number three I made this statement his statement how long must they be with you and number four the ultimate measure of true leadership is the ability to leave are you able to leave and which you began continues now when I use the word leave I'm not talking about dying I'm talking about leaving while you're living transfer the whole thing to someone else and enjoy the privilege of watching it expand without you oh gosh oh man some of y'all are depressed already can see that you depress what would help make me and they need me you are sick true leaders love to leave while they are alive me tell you why most people most people have succession because someone killed them you gotta kill some people to get him out of the organization because they won't leave can you take what you're building and give it over to someone else see if it's not yours and you are just a steward then it's easy to give it but if you think it's yours and you own it or it's your family's property you don't want to leave it on Wednesday I'm going to talk a little bit about you know some of these issues of who should inherit the ministry for these religious people should your children you know God doesn't automatically call your children if you study succession in the Bible for example no one who has family got the business no one Joshua was not related to Moses he cut the business Peter wasn't related to Jesus he got the business Silas and Timothy was related Paul they got the business don't automatically think that it has to go to their kids or something oh dear oh my what have I done see you give it to them when you think you own it now it doesn't mean that God might not in some cases do that like in David and Solomon but they're more cases where it didn't happen so don't walk around assuming that my siblings or my offspring should inherit this this God's bigger than your a private family take a deep breath now let your children to what God created them to do don't call them into the ministry set them free to follow their purpose very important number five true leadership makes itself increasingly unnecessary in a mentoring and succession thinking has to do with leaving so a a true leader constantly makes themselves unnecessary no I guess all of our folks from our organization here and staff who here will tell you I don't hardly be around and then I feel depressed when I come and didn't even notice I'm back I'm like hey oh hey hey and they're like hi and they just keep working I'm like what do you mean hi say something to me like you know maybe I'm a little bit important around here but the joy is it runs without you some of you are sick because you can't take vacation because you think everything revolves around you you you built dependency you you've made yourself more important than they think you are you'll be surprised how quickly they will forget you they will bury you and hire someone while they're leaving the funeral grounds you thank you once again for listening to this message as we hope that it has been a blessing to you our goal is to show you new paths and opportunities so that you can discover your purpose it is your love support and partnership that makes Monroe global possible please visit us online at www. noventri.
