One important question effective leaders need to ask themselves is "What happens to the organization and the work when I am gone?". No one is going to be in a position forever. Leaders leave their positions for a variety of reasons, but, they will leave. So what does happen when they do leave?
In his landmark book The 21 Irrefutable Laws or Leadership, John C. Maxwell calls this the 'Law of Legacy'. Effective leaders concern themselves with developing a succession plan. They very deliberately plan and establish for their replacement whether that is in the form of grooming a successor or setting in place the process to choice their successor, or both. The point is that they don't leave it to chance.
Over the years I have seen successes and I have seen failures. I have seen organizations where the leader very deliberately took steps for what would happen when he/she left. In these cases, as a rule, the organization continued to thrive and carry on and the new leader was able to harness the momentum of the previous leader and keep things moving forward. I have also seen organizations that had no idea what they would do when to leader left, and when she/he did in fact leave, chaos ensued. The organization was in disarray, took multiple steps backward, and in some cases never recovered.
Effective leadership includes long term visioning and planning. Great leaders will set plans in place for organizational successes that will occur long after they are gone. They are deliberate in their succession planning and will not leave it to chance. As Stephen Covey always advised, 'Start with the end in mind', even when that end may be long after you are gone!
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