Monthly Archives: January 2026

How long is too long?

Posted on by
Reply

Let me follow up an obvious question regarding my last post. As Vineer Bhansali1 says about investing, “there’s no glory in staying too long.” But how long is too long for a leader? 

We likely all know a leader who stayed too long in a role. In remaining in place, he managed to steward the organization right past the point of high returns and ride it down the back slope of decline. As I was weighing my decision during my 2022 sabbatical, I had a conversation with another CEO who had recently refused a request by his board that he extend his time in office. He said he would rather leave with more to do than to hang on too long.

The question at hand is obviously contextual, so my advice is to define your own standard in advance. Ask yourself regularly what indicators will tell you it’s the right moment to leave. Regular check-ins will help you extricate yourself from initiatives, keep you light on your feet and make sure you can let go when it’s time.

So much has been written about this topic that I’ve wondered if I have anything fresh to add to the discussion, but this topic was an obvious void on this blog. So I will draw from my own experience and my personal indicators that it’s time to go.

1. If I know what needs to happen, but don’t have the energy to do it. I heard this one first from Andy Stanley. As I was debating my decision, there were several initiatives that came up in which I was motivated to take on the challenge, even if that meant I would have to extend my time in the role to really make the initiative successful. But I can recall a day that someone raised an issue that needed addressing, and I sighed. It was something previous leadership teams had discussed at length, and we thought we’d solved it. Now here it was again, and I didn’t want to deal with it. Alarm bells went off in my head.

2. When new challenges come up, my response is backward-looking. I remember hearing myself saying more than once in response to questions, “You should have seen how bad it was when I started! It’s so much better now.” In other words, when there’s an opportunity or need to change something, you’re looking back and trying to advocate for the change that was already made, not recognizing that you’ve been around long enough that your changes might need to be changed. More alarm bells. As Tom Robbins once wrote and Andy Stanley often repeats, “When your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near.”

3. Have I stopped doing the little things? I’ve collected a number of indicators that fall within this category, though I can’t recall the sources. 

  • You stop asking people on Monday how their weekend was. It’s a sign you’ve stopped caring about people. 
  • You stop doing the foundational things that built your success. For instance, attention to building strong meeting agendas, or finding opportunities to invest in young leaders. 
  • You begin disengaging or even disappearing during the day, perhaps caring more about some pet projects than about the core business. 

The biggest warning for me in the David and Bathsheba story (2 Samuel 11-12) is the line, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army” (11:1). David stopped his normal behavior and abdicated his responsibility to lead from the front. He then found himself with extra time on his hands that led him into sin. Was it entitlement? Was it boredom? While he couldn’t walk away from being king, you can walk away from your leadership role if you’re not doing the little things anymore.

My friend John Pellowe, CEO of the Canadian Centre for Christian Charities, has put in four five-year terms, and he recently decided to put in one more. His decision follows his usual rigorous time of discernment when he asks himself, his team and his board, What kind of leader does the org need for the next five years? Then he asks himself, Can I become that leader? 

I’ve always been impressed at this process, because it forces him to ask some deep-cutting questions, like these from Larry Putterman2:

  • Are you able to continue to reinvent?
  • Do you continue to have fresh ideas?
  • Is a different skill set necessary?
  • Can someone do the job better?

The important thing is that you think ahead to know what you’re looking for, and do regular self evaluation. Even better? Give permission to a few trusted advisors to tell you if they see warning signs. They may see things that fall in your blind spots.

References:

  1. How To Ride A Bucking Bull: Stay Calm And Hang On…For Now, article by Vineer Bhansali, Forbes, Sep 19, 2018
  2. 13 Reasons a Leader Knows It’s Time to Step Down, blog post by Larry Putterman

Series:

Don’t get married

Posted on by
Reply

I’m continuing my series on leadership-as-bull-riding, drawing on a parallel investment-as-bull-riding idea articulated by Vineer Bhansali1. This quote is my springboard:

Plan now for the dismount: Finally, it is important to not get “married” to the bull. In bull-riding, once the eight seconds are up, there is no glory in staying on the bull… There will be other bulls to ride.  If nothing else, one should have an “exit strategy” in mind before mounting the bull.

There are a number of reasons why a bull rider might become affixed to a bull. Some are by choice, some are because of the challenge of timing your exit, and some are unintentional. For instance, a rider secures his stronger hand to the bull with rope based on the assumption that he can release it at his choosing rather than the bull’s. But according to Google, 1 in 20 bull-riding accidents result from the rider’s hand getting “hung up” in the bull rope. He simply can’t let go. 

Likewise, it’s very easy for leaders to become inseparable from a role, an organization or their initiatives, because of the depth of their investment. In my experience, it’s an even bigger risk if they are home-grown leaders who came up within the organization, because they feel greater ownership, and it’s more difficult to envision other bulls to ride.

No glory

I like the elegance of Bhansali’s words: there’s no glory in staying too long. In fact, there are numerous traps around longevity that make it difficult to step away when the time comes.

  • Entitlement. I promised myself when I started my role that I would not be a president who presides. Inspired by the warnings of Dr. Stephen Sample2, I wasn’t taking the role to be president as much as to do president. I saw it as a responsibility, not a title. But the longer you stay, the easier it is to settle in, to take things for granted, or to feel you deserve perks or recognition.
  • Tying identity to the role. As an Enneagram 3, I could write a book on this challenge. A particular focus during my sabbatical in 2022 was to develop other sides of my personality so I could say I am more than my job. If I’m not, leaving becomes an existential crisis.
  • Conflation of yourself and the role. It’s a problem when you reach the conclusion that you are the organization, and therefore, anything you want to do must be good for the organization. Conversely, anyone who opposes your plans must not want what’s best for the organization.
  • Loss of organizational autonomy. There is a point when an organization becomes conflated with the leader to the point the organization struggles to know what it would look like without that leader. The most obvious example would be founder’s syndrome, but it’s also possible with long-serving leaders who end up eclipsing the founder—such as Ray Croc at McDonald’s and Asa Griggs Candler at Coca-Cola.

Leaving is a radical way to break these traps, but regular evaluation around each one can help keep them at bay. Here are some ideas to approach leadership from the assumption that your departure is inevitable.

1. Leadership is a process of constantly turning over responsibilities to others. There are phases when the head of the organization needs to get personally involved, but the goal is to turn each initiative over to the right leader to carry it forward. In my experience, the best way to kill an initiative as the leader is to hold onto it too long. (See Leaders aren’t fruit-bearers.) The leader’s time is valuable real estate, and failure to release responsibilities comes at the expense of the rest of the organization. Remember that when it’s time to leave, anything that hasn’t been properly delegated is finished.

My mantra over my last months in my presidency became, “Let go. And trust God.” It certainly wasn’t easy; sometimes I struggled to extricate my hand from the grip. Week after week, I reviewed the list of things that were still on my desk and challenged my rationale for holding onto them. I knew there were some programs that were still fledgling, and if I pulled away too quickly, they wouldn’t make it. In spite of my attempts, one or two passion projects were casualties of the timing of my departure. That is an inevitable part of exiting.

2. A leader is a steward of a particular era. Unless the leader is the founder, the organization existed before she came, and it will continue after she’s gone. As Simon Sinek3 points out, leadership is not a finite game, with clear starting and stopping points. A stewardship mentality invites a different way of operating, including a willingness to invest in people, play the long game and lay the foundation for your successor.

What gave me counterintuitive courage to release initiatives was the realization that the next leader might very well drop it anyway—even if it was thriving, even if it had shown success under my stewardship. It’s the prerogative of your successor and his or her board, and closing something down doesn’t invalidate the successes of a previous era.

3. The greatest success for a leader is that the organization succeeds after he’s gone. If we’re honest, part of us wants to prove our worth by seeing the organization or initiative fall apart after we’re gone. But that would be a reflection on a leader who made it about himself—which is not leadership at all. When an organization is left in good shape, has a clear direction and has reserves to carry on its mission after a leadership transition, it reflects well on the departing leader.

Anyone who has worked with me over the past decade has heard me pray, over and over, “Lord, this is your organization.” At the end of the day, you aren’t married to your job or the organization. Keeping in mind that it’s God’s organization, God’s company, God’s program, will keep your hands limber so you can let go when the time is right.

References:

  1. How To Ride A Bucking Bull: Stay Calm And Hang On…For Now, article by Vineer Bhansali, Forbes, Sep 19, 2018
  2. The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, by Dr. Stephen Sample
  3. The Infinite Game, by Simon Sinek

Leadership as bull riding series:

Countercultural Integrity

Posted on by
Reply

New Years is the point in the year when recency bias culminates. Journalists love to reflect back on the year, and top-10 and top-100 lists proliferate. It’s easy to fall into this fallacy that puts too much stock in recent experiences or current-day successes over historical comparisons. Any conversation about the “Greatest of All Time” is likely going to give too much consideration to modern-day athletes, actors and statesmen as we forget some of the amazing feats of early-day practitioners, especially when evaluated against their context and antagonists.

So it’s quite remarkable to weigh these words from God in Ezekiel 14:13-14:

…if a country sins against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand against it… even if these three men—Noah, Daniel and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign Lord.

That’s an interesting grouping of Bible characters that’s easy to gloss over when read 2,600 years after it was written. In Ezekiel’s day, Noah and Job would have been legendary. But Daniel was still alive at the time this passage was written—likely in the time between Daniel 2 and 4. A lot of what we know about this young man hadn’t taken place yet.

I’m trying to think of a parallel. It’s not on the same level as comparing LeBron James to Wilt Chamberlain, or a current-day activist reformer to Mahatma Gandhi. It’s an entirely different scale, like rounding out the following groupings with someone who is alive today:

  • Plato, Aristotle and _______
  • Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and _______

How would you even begin to put someone else in that elite company?

It would be much less dangerous to include a third historical figure, where the record is largely complete. Were there no other ancient figures to list among those two legends? Perhaps Abraham, who asked God for mercy, interceding on behalf of two cities that were known for wickedness (Gen 18:22-23)? Caleb, who wholeheartedly followed the Lord in contrast with many of his contemporaries (Num 14:24)? Kings Hezekiah or Josiah, who were both described as exceptional followers of the Lord, who wholeheartedly turned to Him and and unceasingly obeyed (2 Kings 18:5-6, 23:25)?

What trait is celebrated by grouping these three? Personal righteousness, specifically a righteousness that stands against pressure to conform. Let’s call it courageous righteousness and countercultural integrity. The thing about righteousness is that, until the record is closed, it can be gone in an instant. Declaring that a contemporary figure is righteous comes with considerable risk. Ask any company who has had to disentangle themselves from a celebrity endorsement contract. And we can certainly point to many recent church leaders who were exemplary until their secrets were unearthed.

What does the record say about these three figures?

Noah

Noah is a mythic figure, the subject of legends and known to everyone as the man who saved civilization in the world’s only true historical global catastrophe. Before he began building the ark, Genesis 6:9 introduces him as a righteous man, blameless in his generation—in contrast with a perverse culture described in verses 1-7. The apostle Peter later says not only that God preserved him because of his personal righteousness, but that he was a preacher of righteousness (2 Pet 2:5). And Hebrews 11:7 says he inherited righteousness through his faith and in building the ark, he condemned the world.

Job

This ancient figure was commended by God for being blameless, fearing God and turning away from evil—like no one else on earth (Job 1:8 and 2:3). He searched for sin in his own heart and his civic and business activities (ch 31), and held onto his integrity even against his wife’s advice (2:9). He made sacrifices on behalf of his adult children in case any had sinned (1:5) and interceded for his friends. After chapters of false accusations against him, God himself endorsed Job for speaking rightly about God; his prayers alone were acceptable to God (42:7-9). Job is a model of someone who was “purified… in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10).

Daniel

This Jewish captive—who would go on to serve as an advisor for decades to a succession of powerful pagan kings, and gain a reputation by preaching righteousness to King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4:27), praying in spite of religious laws, and for surviving a death sentence in a lion’s den (ch 6)—had done very little when his name was dropped in Ezekiel 14.

As of this writing, this young captive had paired his looks and his brain with the courage of his convictions, refusing to defile himself in spite of high stakes (ch 1). He was then noticed by the Babylonian king as a standout wise man in whom was the spirit of the gods and the ability to communicate with the “revealer of mysteries” (ch 2). Ezekiel’s prophecy is evidence that, even early in Daniel’s career, his reputation had spread to the exiles—like Ezekiel. It likely soared after such a strong endorsement from God himself!

Most of us are too jaded after a series of scandals to count on any modern day figure seeing their integrity survive their lives intact. Of course, God alone knows that Daniel will burnish that early reputation even further, and is not in danger of failing.

What’s my point?

Who could stand today in that righteousness hall of fame? Like Noah, does your integrity stand out against the backdrop of our culture? Like Job and Daniel, can your righteousness stand against pressures to conform?

How many of our contemporaries have started out strong, developed a reputation for integrity and courage, only to fail before the end? It’s a reminder that leaders need constant vigilance against entitlement and compromise. Maintaining our character is hard work. 

As Bobby Clinton says in his Leadership Emergence Theory, very few attain the status he calls “Afterglow”—“the fruit of a lifetime of ministry and growth [that] culminates in an era of recognition and indirect influence,” a time in which “Others will seek them out because of their consistent record in following God” (The Making of a Leader, p47). As a leader, I long to get to that point, with few regrets and a consistency worth celebrating.

Fellow leaders, what disciplines are you putting in place to ensure that when you step down from leadership you will maintain the good name you’ve spent a lifetime building? As new years begin, we love inventories, reflection and examens (If you’re unfamiliar, here’s an example), and the one in Job 31 is a great starting place—covering a breadth of areas like sexual sin, deceit, greed, injustice, stinginess, jealousy and people pleasing.

Plan your dismount beforehand

Posted on by
Reply

As I was researching this analogy of leadership-as-bull-riding, I was delighted to find another author who had also used the same analogy, but for investing1. Think of the parallels to leadership as you read this quote from Vineer Bhansali:

Plan now for the dismount: Finally, it is important to not get “married” to the bull. In bull-riding, once the eight seconds are up, there is no glory in staying on the bull… There will be other bulls to ride. If nothing else, one should have an “exit strategy” in mind before mounting the bull.

In this series, I’m going to borrow Bhansali’s points to frame out a few of my own points about leadership succession planning. I’m mostly thinking of a first chair leader, but you can make the adjustments to other situations.

Plan your exit strategy beforehand

I’ll admit it’s a challenge to ask a newly-appointed leader—whose attention is more likely focused on what he want to accomplish in their first 100 days—to think about his dismount before day one. Here are three ways to apply exit strategy planning.

1. Articulate a best case road map

Employment contracts force us to consider the end game, articulating parameters and clauses for the eventuality of an exit. They should spell out how the leader would initiate an exit plan, and what steps will then kick into place. And how the board would initiate, and what happens then. A contract is the minimum, a starting point designed for protection of organizational assets and individuals. A deeper step might be a contingency plan that fleshes out scenarios for each of the various circumstances where a successor would be needed.

I’m urging going beyond protection and contingencies to considering a best case scenario for how you and the organization want to walk away from your time together. How can both end up with wins, even if the circumstances aren’t the best? Most leaders don’t ask these questions early enough to make a difference in how they set up and carry out their role. 

Lacking clearly-articulated expectations requires negotiation late in the game, which can create unnecessary pain and challenge. I know it doesn’t need to be said, but you have much better negotiating power before you take the position, not afterward.

2. Actively engage in ongoing succession planning

In a previous role in leadership development, I encouraged every leader to keep a chart naming:

  • at least one immediate successor
  • the most likely candidate(s) to be ready in the next two years, and
  • any long shots who need to be on their radar.

Then for the two most obvious candidates, track whether they are in a position that prepares them for the role, and an action step for their development. Ideally, on an annual basis, consider whether those two have taken a development step of some kind and design the next step you could help them take.

Throughout my role as president, I maintained my own confidential succession plan with potential replacements. I gave regular updates to the board, including a list of my most likely successors, using as a framework the classic article from Eichinger and Peters2 that draws your attention to “seven CEOs working for your organization today”—everyone from the 50-year-old most-logical CEO-in-waiting to the 35-year-old rising star to the 18-year-old high-potential intern. I also tracked along with the development of a number of these candidates, encouraging and even intervening in their development. With a couple, I had direct conversations to encourage very specific development and share openly about my own plans.

Keep in mind that a succession plan needs to be a living document, regularly updated. It’s far too easy to rest in your plans only to discover when you need it that it’s out of date: leaders are no longer available, you’ve lost confidence in one, or your view too optimistic and none are ready. Remember that, in a number of scenarios, carrying out the succession plan will be managed by someone other than you. Therefore it needs to be accessible and understandable by those who might be implementing it. Of course, those scenarios also mean you won’t be the one to make the decisions, and the one who does may go in a completely different direction. Your goal in succession planning is to intentionally invest in your preferred candidates so they are ready and so attractive that they will stand out among the options.

3. Develop a rhythm that asks the question

You need a rhythm that sparks the necessary conversation that will air out assumptions and plans. It could be as rigorous as formalizing 3- or 4-year terms for your position, or as simple as a calendared conversation. Without that, the onus is on one party or the other to initiate the conversation, and there’s a tendency for each side to set the bar high for a circumstance weighty enough to end the status quo. 

A well-designed plan, with early negotiations, a constant updating of the succession landscape, and scheduled conversations, will allow a leader to dismount in a way that minimizes injury and ensures a smooth transition to whatever’s next for both parties. Seamless exits and handovers start before mounting the bull.

My final thought is that both sides need to show a lot of grace. No amount of planning will remove all potential for injury in a process as fraught as this one. But none of these injuries should be fatal; time will heal minor wounds, allowing both bull and bull rider to move forward with genuine respect, admiration and a desire for the best case for both.

References:

  1. How To Ride A Bucking Bull: Stay Calm And Hang On…For Now, article by Vineer Bhansali, Forbes, Sep 19, 2018
  2. There are seven CEOs working for your organization today—do you know who they are and do you know what to do?, article by Robert W. Eichinger and James Peters, 2005. (It doesn’t seem to be online anymore, but I can send it to you if you’re interested.)

Leadership as bull riding series: