The Magnificent ExitSample

Building on the Same Foundation and Casting the Same Vision

We can learn a lot about succession planning from the relationship between Elijah and Elisha. What strikes me most about Elisha (the new leader) is his deference, love, and respect for the work of Elijah (the old leader). Elisha built on the same foundation as Elijah and continued to cast the same vision.

Imagine someone was building a house and got to mid-height with the walls and then asked you to finish the job. Let’s say you agree, but before you continue with the walls, you decide to create a completely different foundation than the one that already exists. Seems crazy, doesn’t it? Strangely, this is one of the common mistakes new leaders make. They look at the resources, the people, and the finances, and start to make changes to fit their revised vision.

As the new leader, your vision should be the old leader’s vision and your foundation should be the old leader’s foundation. This isn’t limiting – this is strategic. Staff can smell a change of vision from a mile away. When they do, they’ll begin to get restless. When culture is agitated, resources become misallocated and mission drifts. It’s hard to build something without people and aligned resources. When I took over from a strong visionary who had built a solid foundation, I took extra care to over-communicate his vision to others and emphasize that we were building on the same foundation. It made people feel safe. No one panicked. Even when I had to change a few things, I made sure those involved knew the changes were to better entrench the existing vision and values.

Leading like this is not only strategic; it’s also an exercise in humility. It took me a few years to really start to understand that leadership environment. I needed to remain humble so that I didn’t fall into the trap of being the smart, pace-setting leader everyone could tell knew less than he thought he knew. In that first year, I found creative ways to regularly tell my staff that I didn’t know what I was doing. This created space for me to make mistakes in those early months, without being too harshly judged. Stay humble and be strategic.