Passing It On: Growing Your Future Leaders (16 page)

Embrace and encourage the maverick.

Jesus Christ challenged His mentees to think beyond the norm and break traditions.

Nonconformity is a requirement of leadership.

O
NE DAY
I went to the supermarket to run an errand for my wife. While there, I walked over to the produce section. As I surveyed
the many fruits, vegetables, and juices, I noticed signs that said “seedless grapes” and “seedless oranges.” At first I thought
it was a gimmick because I had never heard of such things. I thought, “Is it possible for there to be fruit without seeds?”

I asked the attendant in the store. “Is the information on these signs correct?” He smiled and said, “This is the new trend.”
I reached out and picked up a beautiful orange. It looked normal. It smelled normal. I thought to myself, “Is this our future?”
and the answer exploded in my mind. This fruit has no future.

Suddenly, I realized the future of everything exists in the seeds of that thing, and where there is no seed, there is no future.
I walked away from that supermarket forever changed, fully understanding that the principle of the seedless fruit applies
to all life. Every organization, political party, church, corporation, and even family must cultivate, identify, secure, and
develop the potential seeds within its context that will guarantee the perpetuation of that entity. That is mentoring. The
process of mentoring and the principle of succession protect all organizations from becoming seedless fruit. Seedless fruits
only satisfy the present, focusing on immediate gratification at the expense of posterity.

The responsibility of mentoring and the commitment to effective succession must never be an experiment but rather must be
intentional. Jesus planted seeds. He did not leave “leadership development” to chance. He had a program. He spent three and
a half years training, developing, molding, shaping, and modeling leadership to His twelve students. By the time He left,
the ultimate trainer made sure they could preach, teach, pray, heal, cast out demons, and perform miracles. His greatest success
was not what He did, but what His students and their students did after He left.

While He was with them, Jesus told this story:

Matthew 13:31–32
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though
it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the
birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

“Mentoring is the seed that we plant for future generations.”

Mentoring is the seed that we plant for future generations. Many leaders, however, are like seedless grapes. They do not produce
a seed that can readily reproduce more of the same. If you recall the three stages of life I introduced earlier (see chapter
6), a fruit is dependent on the tree. If you leave it on the tree, it will eventually release itself when it is ripe and will
fall to the ground. The fruit becomes independent, but that is not the final stage. You might think the goal of an orange
tree is to produce fruit, but that is not true. The goal is to produce seeds. When the fruit falls from the tree, the greatest
gift that it can give to the world is the seed that it contains. The purpose of a tree is not to produce fruit, but to produce
seed. The greatest gift that a fruit carries is not the fruit, but the seed. You can go to the grocery store and buy seedless
grapes and seedless oranges. That is fruit with no future. It cannot reproduce itself.

As I outlined in chapter 6, the ultimate goal of life is not independence, but interdependence, the ability to contribute
to the ongoing development of the species. Mentoring assures that we do not become like seedless fruit.
As a leader, your greatest contribution to life is not your leadership, but the seed—the leaders that you produced and carried
to maturity. You can reproduce your own kind. You can transfer all that you have become into the next generation.

Leaders who fail to mentor are seedless fruit. In order to mentor and bear fruit, you have to banish these tendencies, issues,
and emotions:

Entitlement
. Leaders who do not mentor desire job security for themselves. To mentor means that you are working yourself out of a job
and that you do not see your job as a permanent position of private ownership or entitlement. Many leaders derive their self-worth
from the position. Their self-esteem depends on it. They see that job as their security. They are afraid to mentor because
they feel they would be undermining their own life.

Fear
. Mentoring implies that you intend to leave. Resistance to mentoring comes when leaders believe they have nowhere to go.
They fear that unknown dark hole called retirement. They also feel mentoring will undermine their job, their financial security,
and their pension. “If I mentor, I’m going to end up losing all of that,” they think. Retiring can be very frightening to
a leader who has no life to which they can look forward. We must remember that our lives are bigger than our jobs and that
our jobs are temporary phases. We must not be afraid to prepare others to take our place.

Resistance
. Nothing frightens humans more than change, especially uncontrolled change. When you mentor someone, you are creating the
prospect of change that directly affects you. We do not mind changing other people’s lives, but we do not want to change our
own. We do not mind removing other people from our department, but we do not want to remove ourselves. Mentoring requires
that we be willing to change who we are, where we are and what we are. Those are frightening prospects.

Poor self-esteem
. If you get your sense of worth or value from your position and title, you would want to retain them as long as you live.
Obviously, you will not feel it is in your best interest to prepare someone else to take your job. If we recognize, however,
that our own worth comes from our unique gifts and transcends the job we have today, we can free ourselves to mentor others
to grow into our position.

Doubt
. Many leaders will declare they are mentors and promote the idea that one should mentor and prepare a successor. Underlying
their public declarations, however, is a fear that the people in their present circle could
never fill their shoes. They lack faith in their own people. They do not mentor anyone because they do not think anyone around
them is worthy of taking their place.

Misplaced love
. Leaders can fall in love with the people at their job so much that they are afraid to live without them. When you are in
an organization twenty to thirty years, the people in it can become like family. Mentoring is about giving up power, giving
up authority, transferring influence, and giving up control. Mentoring would suggest giving up “family.” We need to remember
that all of life is transitional. We should never attach ourselves to anything or anyone to the point that our very sense
of individuality and our sense of self-worth depend on those relationships.

Investment
. You have invested your whole life in this organization, church, or company, and now you have to mentor someone who might
take your investment or even destroy it after you are gone. This is the attitude of a leader who does not understand that
the only way to preserve the investment is to mentor a successor. If you have mentored well, your investments will be in good
hands.

Most of our reasons for failure to mentor—for being seedless grapes—boil down to lack of confidence in ourselves and in others.

It comes down to fear of the future and lack of faith. Our fears are indicators of poor leadership. This is why Christ has
come into our lives. Jesus came to shake us loose from false self-worth or lack of self-worth. If you have been in a leadership
position for a significant time, you should know your worth and have the confidence to have produced, developed, refined,
and cultivated the people under your influence to become leaders. Leaders develop people who can become successors.

Many people today who have held jobs for decades are losing them because of the global economic crisis. They are disgruntled,
depressed, and disillusioned. Many of them are turning to drugs, alcohol, or both to try to numb the pain. Some are giving
up completely—committing suicide—all because they lost a job or a title.

What if economic forces wiped out your entire company or industry? You have worked your whole life, but all of your training
is for an industry made extinct by the Internet or outsourcing to foreign countries. I believe that is a great opportunity
for you to reassess your priorities and do an inventory of yourself: What is my worth? Where are my values grounded?

A clear sense of self-worth enables you to mentor because mentoring initiates the process by which you eventually remove yourself
from a position of leadership. That is a frightening process.

Jesus, our example of the ultimate mentor, was not worried about His leadership position. He was secure. Early in His ministry,
He put His departure on the agenda. He began talking about leaving.

Matthew 16:21
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands
of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Mark 8:31
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and
teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.

Luke 9:22
And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law,
and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

Why call a staff meeting in your organization and say, “Look, I’m not going to be with you forever. So I want to train you
to do without me.”? Plan your departure the day you begin so you will not be a seedless grape.

Among the greatest fears about mentoring that plague the insecure leader are: “If I successfully train my replacement, then
what is my future? Do I still have a place? Is there life after mentoring?” The answer is, “Absolutely, yes!”
Mentoring guarantees that your life will never be stagnant and that your success will never imprison you in your position.

Jesus Christ knew that He came to Earth to leave. All throughout His life with the disciples, He kept reminding them, saying
things like: “I am leaving. I am going to die. I am going to leave. You know, I will be going soon.”

That should be the spirit of a true leader. Because you know that you are transitional, you can focus on people. You are free
to focus on mentoring. Your departure is a given. You need not fear retirement.

Jesus had no fear of the future or going into the unknown because He knew the unknown was in the hands of His Father. All
true leaders must understand that they do not belong to themselves. They belong to God. He gives them every position of leadership
for His season.

Jesus was conscious of this. He often said, “I go to my father. I go to prepare a place for you.” He kept talking about a
sense of another assignment. True leaders are always conscious that change is inevitable and should be anticipated and expected.
They can make preparations because change is certain. True leaders know that no position is a destination, and none is a permanent
address, but rather they consider each position a prep course for their next phase of life.

This ultimate leader, Jesus Christ, did not resist change but, in fact, initiated change. It is the very consciousness of
guaranteed change that gives birth to the need to mentor. Jesus had no fear of mentoring because He loved change. He actually
challenged the disciples many times to do things they were afraid to do. He encouraged innovation. He told Peter to walk on
the water. This is innovative encouragement. He told His mentees to feed the five thousand with just a brown-bag lunch. He
forced them to “repurpose” fishes and loaves. He challenged their resistance and forced them to change. His leadership proved
that He believed in Himself. His favorite words were “I am”—words that represent self-worth, self-concept, and selfesteem.
“I am the bread of life. I am the word of life. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the door. I am the resurrection.” Everything
He said expressed His sense of confidence in Himself.

He also had confidence in the successor He was grooming. A brief review of His relationship in Peter reveals that Jesus had
confidence in Peter from the very beginning. Once Peter bragged that he would never forsake his
mentor. Jesus told Peter he would be tested on that point but would survive the challenge and come back.

Luke 22:31–33
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And
when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”

Even after Peter had denied Jesus three times (see Luke 22:57–62) while He was on trial, the risen Jesus had confidence. After
His death and resurrection, the mentor called a meeting and wanted all of His students to be there. The angel told those who
came to the tomb:

Mark 16:7 “But go, tell his disciples and Peter
, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”

Mentors have to remember that their mentees will fail sometime, but your confidence in them should bring them back, and that
is what brought Peter back. The confidence of his mentor drew Peter back into the leadership.