Succession is something leaders typically start to think about at the end of their careers. They think, when I retire, who am I going to pass this on to so my legacy survives and the vision is carried forward? While that is a very good thought, career-end is way too late. Effective leaders think about succession every day.

At one point in my career, the next five levels of management above me were all in their 60s. Assuming they were all going to retire in the next few years, that made for a highly unstable organization. That also sent a message that there was little opportunity to advance to senior management until career-end.

That same organization tried to do something about it by creating a formal program to draft high-potential millennials into leadership development programs and mentorship by those 60+ senior leaders. I think it was a great program. The only thing I found odd was that there was no opportunity for mid-career, mid-level leaders like myself to participate, either as mentors or mentees.

Looking at this situation, I pondered to myself how I could somehow avoid a similar situation at my career end. I decided for myself that succession planning and leadership development of others wasn’t something I was going to procrastinate. The time to do this is right now.

“You are not a leader until you have developed a leader who has developed a leader.” – author unknown

I love this quote because it challenges me. I also love that it redefines leadership as something you need to replicate in others, not only possess yourself. In essence, leadership absent of multiplication isn’t leadership.

One of the self-talk issues I struggle with is the thought that I really don’t know anything and I really haven’t accomplished anything significant yet. I think that I don’t really have much to give. I think those thoughts and I have a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and my own leadership blog. If I think those thoughts, then you probably do too. Don’t let that stop you from passing it on. Thoughts like this create the succession crisis situation I described at the beginning of this article. Take what you know (however little you believe it to be) and pass it on.

I’ve been mentored and I also mentor people. As a mentee, the most powerful relationships are with those who are only slightly ahead of me in my career. As a mentor, that is who you should be looking for. Folks need a guide and a perspective that are only slightly more advanced than their own thinking. People find it hard to relate to folks who are so far ahead of them.

The most practical and tangible thing I do is develop the leaders that report to me. There is a self-serving aspect to it, but I benefit last. Let me explain: I’m a busy leader. My boss can’t give me more challenging work until I create some capacity for myself. The leaders who report to me are also busy. They can’t take anything off my plate unless they empty theirs. I develop my leaders to develop their leaders, to develop their senior engineers. Those senior engineers need to stop working the full stack top-to-bottom and operationalize tasks for transition to operations or junior engineers.

Then their team leads can take their hands off the keyboards and manage the work direction of the team. Then their managers can stop managing day-to-day work, and focus on finance, strategy, roadmaps, service, and relationships. Then I can have the capacity to develop the long-term technology and organizational strategy, and whatever else my boss wants to give me to do. If I get more responsibility, then I have more to pass on and the cycle repeats.

That was a long explanation, but I hope it makes sense. Leadership development only works if you drive it pervasively down and across your entire organization, raising everyone’s capacity and capability every day. Succeed at that, and you get more capacity for yourself in the end. Fail at that, and your entire organization stagnates with you.

The worst side-effect of failure is this: High-potential leaders that are in a stagnate organization have nowhere to go but out. High-potential leaders need to be in an organization that is growing or developing. If the leader at the top fails to provide enough growth opportunities for their high potentials, then they have no choice but to leave the organization. That ends up being a fine choice for the individual, but it’s a sad reflection on the organization. This will always happen from time to time, but if it becomes a pattern, the organizational health is in extreme jeopardy.

Leadership isn’t leadership until you give it away. Find people to invest in. The world of enterprise technology needs better leaders. That need is part of what drives me to write this blog each week. I hope to be virtually mentoring all of my readers from afar. More importantly, use this blog as an encouragement to strike up leadership conversations around the topics each week in your circles of influence. Each one of us is far enough in our careers that we can look back and find someone who needs encouragement and wisdom to get to where we’ve already been. In doing that, you not only pay it forward, but you also build a self-sustaining organization and create growth opportunities for the multitudes.

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