Succession Planning: “Wise People Know When to Quit”

Note: This is the seventh of 11 blogs featuring practical wisdom from the new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 4: Succession Planning. Free to ECFA members, you can download the resource and video by clicking here.

Principle No. 7: Trust God and Discern Direction! Wisdom on Ending Well

Here’s a gut-check: “Does our board regularly practice spiritual discernment for fork-in-the-road decisions, or are our prayer practices more superficial than transformational?”

When your CEO retires, resigns (or if necessary, is terminated)…does your board have a culture and adequate competencies for spiritually discerning God’s voice? A time of crisis is a very bad time to play catch-up on how to hear from God.

Don’t wait until the eleventh hour of a succession planning crisis to get on your knees. Practice spiritual discernment early and often! But note this caution from Ruth Haley Barton in Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry:

“It is also important to involve the right people. One very common leadership mistake is to think that we can take a group of undiscerning individuals and expect them to show up in a leadership setting and all of a sudden become discerning!”

A board with spiritual discernment radar will also have wise counsel for their CEO regarding exit plans. In his book, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward, Dr. Henry Cloud quotes Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.” Cloud, a leadership coach and clinical psychologist, also adds, “Wise people know when to quit.”

When boards help their CEOs end well at the right time and in God-honoring ways, they build a healthy foundation for God’s next leader.

The Facilitator Guide includes a resource from Ruth Haley Barton with ten guidelines for “entering into and maintaining a listening posture.” It’s a powerful list!  

Check it out here: 

DOWNLOAD: ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 4: Succession Planning – 11 Principles for Successful Successions: “Every CEO is an Interim CEO.” The toolbox includes 
   • Read-and-Engage Viewing Guide (20 pages) – photocopy for board members
   • Facilitator Guide (10 pages)
   • 4 short videos (4-5 minutes each)
   • Additional resources and succession planning tools

BOARD DISCUSSION: Does our board regularly practice spiritual discernment for fork-in-the-road decisions, or are our prayer practices more superficial than transformational?

MORE RESOURCES: Follow the “40 Blogs. 40 Wednesdays.” color commentaries on Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom. Click here.