I’ve probably thought far more about succession than I thought about starting two organizations. The ideas and the opportunities came and it was just a matter of acting on them and getting started. One of my favorite pictures is one of sitting in our breakfast room at home with my then assistant Jan Hommel two days after we started Fourth Partner and The Gathering. We moved the dishes out of the way to get the shot. Now closing on 20 years later I would love to handle succession as easily!

Today I taught on succession and realized a couple of things I had not noticed before. They helped me and maybe they will be useful for you if you are in a similar stage of life. First the relationship Moses had with Israel was completely different from theirs with Joshua. From the beginning the people resented Moses’ seeming desire to “lord it over” them. Maybe it was his personality his upbringing as royalty or their insecurity but there was always a conflict between his leadership style and their “followership” style. He was from their perspective autocratic and elitist. They were from his perspective stiff-necked rebellious and corrupt. So when the time came for him to give counsel to Joshua about the people he was about to lead Moses described them this way: “If you have been rebellious against the Lord while I am still alive and with you how much more will you rebel after I die! For I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn from the way I have commanded you. In days to come disaster will fall on you…” In other words Joshua will be leading them into the land but they will be the same people with the same complaints paranoia cowardice lack of trust and corrupt hearts they have always been.

I looked all through the book of Joshua for proof of this and I found none of it. There was one incident of disobedience with a single family but the whole nation joined in solving it. I looked for fear and rebellion and corruption and found none. There was no anger on Joshua’s part and no resentment on the part of the people. No one accused Joshua of lording it over them. There were no rebellions and no outbreaks of idolatry. There is nothing really but success.

So if you think your successor will struggle with your leadership issues – you are probably mistaken. If we pick the right successors there is a good chance they will be even better leaders than we have been and will have success we could not have imagined. Don’t describe your experience with people and expect that to be theirs. They may accomplish things of which we could only see from a distance.