E83. Leading Beyond Yourself: The Succession Planning Journey w/ David Ashcraft, CEO

What happens to your organization when you leave? Dr. David Ashcraft, President and CEO of the Global Leadership Network, tackles the critical yet often neglected topic of succession planning with remarkable transparency and practical wisdom.

Ashcraft's leadership journey took an unexpected turn after a pivotal conversation with Jim Collins, who challenged him with a provocative insight: "You'll never be a level five leader until you've actually left your organization and it's better with you gone than with you there." This single statement transformed Ashcraft's approach to leadership at LCBC Church, where he served as senior pastor for 32 years, growing the congregation from 150 to over 25,000 people across multiple locations.

The conversation reveals succession planning as both a strategic process and a deeply personal journey. Ashcraft details how he developed a comprehensive 10-year succession plan focused on organizational health rather than personal timing, identified and systematically developed his successor, and navigated the unexpected emotional challenges of letting go. His candid reflections on battling pride after stepping away provide a rare glimpse into the psychological dimensions of leadership transition.

Perhaps most valuable are the practical insights Ashcraft offers: the importance of documentation, creating a special succession subcommittee, implementing a careful transition period, and remaining physically absent after departure to allow new leadership to flourish. Throughout the discussion, he emphasizes that true succession isn't about managing your exit but ensuring your organization thrives long after you've gone.

Whether you lead a church, nonprofit, or business, this conversation offers a masterclass in planning for your organization's future beyond your tenure. It challenges leaders to shift focus from "what's next for me" to "what's best for the organization I'm leading"—a perspective that ultimately defines leadership legacy.

Transcript

Introduction to Dr. David Ashcraft

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Conversations where today, we are speaking with Dr David Ashcraft, who is the president and CEO of the Global Leadership Network. For many years, david was a senior pastor and he is also the co-author of the book what Was I Thinking? How to Make Better Decisions so you Can Live and Lead with Confidence. Welcome to the show, david. How are you on this fine day?

Speaker 2 0:25

I'm very good, Kelly. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 0:28

Absolutely. Where are you coming to us from today?

Speaker 2 0:32

So actually today I'm in Ocean City, New Jersey. So, and it's a rainy day, so it's not even one that we could go to the beach.

Speaker 1 0:39

Oh, that's too bad, but tomorrow's a new day.

Speaker 2 0:45

Exactly the forecast, I think it is rain all week, but that's okay, it's just good to be here.

Speaker 1 0:47

Well, good, I'd love for you maybe to tell us a little bit more about you and the work that you do with the Global Leadership Network.

Speaker 2 0:56

Yeah, I'd love to tell you about that. So let me go back and give you just a little bit of history. Kelly, I grew up in the Dallas, texas area. My dad was a pastor and ever since I was a little kid everybody would always tell me I was going to follow in my father's footsteps and be a pastor. And as a kid I hated that. I didn't like people telling me what I was going to be. When I grew up and I loved my dad, loved what he did. I just didn't like people directing my path for me.

Speaker 2 1:25

So I went off to Texas Tech University, studied business. I thought I was going to be a lawyer and by my senior year at Tech, god had worked enough in my heart to, rather than go to law school or apply to law school, I applied to Dallas Theological Seminary, studied the Bible theology there, still didn't think I was going to be a pastor. I thought I'd be involved in something other than pastoring. But started working at my dad's church in the Dallas area and worked with him for about 10 years. Church in the Dallas area and worked with him for about 10 years.

Speaker 2 1:48

And 1991, ruth and I my wife did something we never thought we'd do because Texans you're just kind of taught you don't ever leave the state of Texas and once you leave you realize there's other beautiful places outside of the state. But when you're there you're kind of told there's nothing like it. And so we moved actually to Pennsylvania in 1991 to a little church of about 150 people and 32 years there as senior pastor. That church grew from that 150 people to about 22,000 people every weekend three years ago and now it's about 25,000 people and 25 locations across the state of Pennsylvania. So that was my background until I stepped away from that and then I stepped into the Global Leadership Network.

Speaker 1 2:28

Yeah, and let's hear a little bit about what does GLN do? What?

Speaker 2 2:32

is it? Yeah, the Global Leadership Network. So I'm biased. I've been with the organization in a lead role, as the president and CEO, for the last two years, and so I don't take credit for what's happened in the past, and so I can brag a little bit about it and say I truly believe and I think most people would agree it is the longest running it's been running for 31 years really the premier leadership, faith-based leadership event in the world, and so we primarily put on a leadership summit every August and it's a two-day event that is broadcast in Chicago and then it's sent out to about 350,000 people worldwide and it really is focused on leadership and helping people be better leaders.

Speaker 1 3:16

Yeah, and I think so many times people are thinking it's just the summit, it's those two days and then that's it. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what happens after the summit? It's those two days and then that's it. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what happens after the summit? Happens in August.

Speaker 2 3:28

Yeah. So what happens at the summit? That will go to all of our US sites, and so typically we'll have about 450 host sites in the United States. Typically most of them are churches, but not all. There are some businesses, there are some what we call city movements, where a collection of people come together in a particular community to take part in the summit, but then it's translated over the next several weeks into about 60 different languages and then throughout the rest of the year it will be taken to about 110 different countries, about 700 different sites around the world. So what's fun is somebody will speak at the summit in August and then February or March they'll start getting emails from some remote country around the world where people are just then observing it, watching it and benefiting from it. So they'll email us, or they'll email their leaders, the speakers, and say, man, you've changed my life and so it's just fun to see that it goes on throughout the year that way.

Speaker 1 4:23

And one other thing before we get into succession planning, which I know is truly important, is that it also goes into the prison system. If it's, let's talk a little bit about that, because that is amazing.

Speaker 2 4:38

It is a real cool thing. So we started, probably about 10 years ago, broadcasting the summit into prisons, and so right now we're in about 220 prisons in the United States, about 20,000 participants. Residents of those prisons take part with us and it really is amazing to see. I actually had opportunity last summer to go to the Algoa prison in Missouri and spend a day there with residents that had been through what they called the Global Leadership Academy. So they actually will take the summit, break it down into about 24 weeks.

Journey from Pastor to GLN Leader

Speaker 2 5:11

They will have two of the inmates that will summarize what the talk is going to be, that they'll pull from the summit, then they'll watch the talk, then they break into groups and discuss it and, what's fascinating, it's changed the culture in that prison, and so it's not even just the residents, but it's the guards and prison officials as well that participate in it. And so to watch them interacting together and the table that I was at for the day, there were eight or nine guys in it. All of them were there because they had taken in one way or another. They'd taken somebody's life. They admitted their guilt, they knew it was wrong, they knew why they were there, and yet the summit? What they would say is it's given them hope that there's still some value to their life, and so it's just. It was fascinating to see and really exciting to watch and see what's going on. And so there's several states where their entire prison system is taking part in the summit that way and it's really starting to expand and blossom, which is fun to see.

Speaker 1 6:05

Yeah, that is amazing, such good, good work that you and your teams are doing, so thank you for that.

Speaker 2 6:12

Yeah, it's an honor to be a part of it. Yeah, thank you, Kelly.

Speaker 1 6:15

Absolutely, and today we're gonna switch gears. We're gonna talk about succession planning, which I know is something that's near and dear to your heart. You know an awful lot about with the work that you do. So I would love, maybe for somebody who they've heard the word Succession Planning but they're not really sure what that is, could you maybe define that, how you would define that for someone.

Speaker 2 6:41

Yeah, for me, just real simply put, it's just planning for what happens after you depart the organization that you're leading or the role that you're in. So what happens next? And I think, kelly, so often we focus on ourselves and what's going to happen to us when we step away. And probably my challenge to folks is to not just think about ourselves but also think about the organization and what's going to happen to the organization once we step away.

Speaker 1 7:07

Thank you for that. I know I have a quote here by Benjamin Franklin, who once said by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

Speaker 2 7:15

Exactly.

Speaker 1 7:16

That, to me, sums it up.

Speaker 2 7:18

And Kelly. What's fascinating is most of us, as leaders, we love to plan, we love to prepare. When it comes to us departing our position or stepping out of our role, we tend not to plan that, and so it's just fascinating. Why wouldn't we continue the planning stage right up until our stepping away and then on into the future for the organization?

Speaker 1 7:37

So who, would you say, manages the succession plan?

Speaker 2 7:42

As far as more like who's responsible for it, would you say yes, you know, it probably varies from organization to organization. I'll tell you my story real quick, the way I really jumped into succession planning for me and again, I was a pastor for 32 years. The church that I led was called LCBC Church, and that just means stands for Lives Changed by Christ, and we just say that's who we are. We're a community of people whose lives have been, and continue to be changed by Jesus Christ. And so I had opportunity, probably now 13, 14 years ago, to sit in a small group with about 15 people and Jim Collins.

Speaker 2 8:16

Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great and numerous books, and so, as we're sitting around the table, he's talking about a variety of things, but one of the talks was about his five levels of leadership. His top level is what he calls level five. As he's describing level five, I'm sitting there at the table and probably pridefully, arrogantly thinking, oh, surely I'm a level five leader. As he's talking about what a level five leader is, he made the statement and it totally changed everything, the way I planned the rest of my career at lcbc. But he made the statement. He said you'll never be a level five leader until you've actually left your organization that you're leading, and it's better with you gone than with you there, and so you have to leave and it has to do better with you, god, and that wasn't really what had been in my plan. As I thought through LCBC's future. I really hadn't thought what the future would be for LCBC.

Speaker 2 9:08

And you know again, pridefully, selfishly. I probably hoped that they would struggle some and that they would miss me and realize what an amazing leader David had been. And what Jim Collins said that day is. If that happens, he says you're not a good leader, you didn't plan and you didn't prepare well. So that started me and propelled me on this journey to say how do I plan so that LCBC will be better when I'm gone than when I'm there?

Speaker 1 9:30

Can you give us, maybe, an example of how your succession plan went Like? What did that look like from just a high view?

Speaker 2 9:37

Yeah. So for me, I sat down and mapped out about a 10 to 12 year plan. I was probably mid fifties at that time and just said, okay, so if I stay till I'm mid sixties, then what needs to happen so that LCBs will be better when I'm gone? And so I'd mapped out this 10 year plan all on one sheet of paper, had three different phases to it. One was kind of the preparation of what I thought needed to happen to get the church ready. The other was doing those things. And then the third was the transition to new leadership.

Speaker 2 10:08

And I looked at you know, what did the church need? And we needed financially to be stronger. We had debt we needed to pay off, and then I wanted to make sure I left with lots of money in the bank for future investment into new locations and things like that. I needed to work on the church getting comfortable with somebody else leading, and so part of that was I was speaking pretty much every weekend. They hadn't heard other speakers much, and so I needed to get them ready to hear other voices, and so we developed a teaching team so that they'd get ready for that. It involved identifying my successor and working to that end. It involved restructuring the staff so that they would be ready to go into the future. So it was things like that, and so for each of those things I kind of came up with a smaller plan to say what needs to happen to make sure that those things really do take place. So, again, lcbc can thrive when I'm gone.

Speaker 1 10:59

Thank you for sharing that. I think one of the things about succession plan is that we may plan for us stepping out, but never for emergencies, and so what do you think about having an emergency succession plan versus a long-term succession plan? Do you think there's any differences there?

Speaker 2 11:20

Definitely a difference, kelly and I think we need both and our organization always had had an emergency plan. We just didn't have the long-term plan. For us, the emergency plan I mean it was. You know. You always say what happens if somebody in Pennsylvania. The joke would always be if I were to get hit by a beer truck, what would happen? Who's going to step in and leave?

Speaker 1 11:39

the organization.

Speaker 2 11:40

What about a buggy or a buggy or some buggy? What about a buggy or a buggy or some buggy? Yeah, that might not kill you, though. It might just injure you for a while, but anyway it was what happens, and so I always had to have a plan that I presented to the board each year and said here's what I'm recommending. That was a little bit different, because it didn't always have to be an individual. In our case, it typically was the executive team, and we planned things out from a speaking rotation at the church a year in advance, and so we knew who was going to be speaking. We just needed to know who was going to run things, and rather than one individual, I think the executive team was typically the one that would say we can keep running until we find a replacement for David or until he's able to come back if he's just temporarily out. So that was more our case that way, but I think it is important that an organization do that, because you never know what's going to happen.

Speaker 1 12:29

In your experience? Do you see there's maybe something generationally when people think about a succession plan. Maybe the younger leader may not think that they need to have a succession plan in place. Have you seen any of that in the work that you've done?

Speaker 2 12:48

You know, good question, I think, if I'm honest, most people don't think they need a succession plan. It's not even a matter of age, and so I'll watch guys that are into their mid-60s, late-60s and they'll say, yeah, at some point I need to start thinking about what's going to happen next, and usually they're thinking about for themselves. They're not even thinking about their organization, and so I think the biggest shift for me after listening to Jim Collins talk is I needed to take the focus off of me and really put it on the organization and say what's best, in my case, for LCBC. And again, I don't know that I was thinking that way. I know I wasn't, and I don't know that most people think that way, because usually we're thinking about ourselves what do I need to do to make sure I set myself up well when I step away, financially well, or if I'm going to go into something else, what am I stepping into? And so one of the things that I did with our board early on is I said if we can work out an arrangement where you, the church, the board will take care of me financially for several years after I step away, then I can stay focused on LCBC right up until the end.

Speaker 2 13:51

But if I don't know what's going to happen when I step away, then I'm going to start planning and I'm going to start building something else for myself when I step away from LCBC. And so what that means is you're not going to have my full attention, I'm going to be distracted because I'm going to be building some other career when I step away. And I said I don't want to do that. I want to stay 100% focused on LCBC. So we worked. One of the first things we did is worked out kind of a financial arrangement for me for when I stepped away so that I could give my 100% attention to LCBC right up until the end. And then my promise to them was I will do everything I can to make sure LCBC excels in the future in return for that. And so that was kind of how I took care of myself.

Speaker 2 14:31

And so often the advice is you need to know what you're going to next, and so again, that's what takes your eyes off of the organization you're with. And as I researched and kind of jumped into this more, what I found is a lot of the newer advice is take time off. Take six months, 12 months off, because you don't know what's going to come your way right now. But once you step away, then there's new opportunities that may come up. And so what I'm hearing? More and more studies from Stanford and different universities are saying man, take some time off, give opportunities, opportunities to come your way.

Speaker 1 15:05

So Rest is good.

Speaker 2 15:08

And rest is good as well, yeah, so yeah, that's not a bad thing, yeah.

Speaker 1 15:13

So a lot of this is from what I'm hearing is that you have to humble yourself as a senior leader so many because you are in charge. You are the person in charge and really helping leaders understand, and maybe that's a question how would you help a leader understand that they need to humble themselves in order to truly manage this well?

Creating a 10-Year Succession Plan

Speaker 2 15:35

Yeah Well, and you asked earlier, kelly, who's responsible for a succession plan. I'm not sure that most boards are prepared for this. I'm not sure boards are good at this, and so I really for me. I took it on myself and I felt like this was my responsibility.

Speaker 2 15:50

And in some ways I knew the organization as well, if not better than everybody, and so that helped me in that process. Having been there 32 years, I think the humbling part is again, it's not about me ever. And it's easy for pastors, it's easy for anybody in a business to feel like, well, it's my business or it's my church. And one of the things that Ruth, my wife, and I had to kind of constantly work through as we were letting go of LCBC was the fact that it never was ours. We had been with it when it grew from 150 to 20-some thousand people, but it never was ours. We were just stewarding it from God. God allowed us to lead in that time period. We're going to hand it to somebody else to steward and to lead. But it's so easy emotionally to get attached and feel like it's yours and you're letting your thing go, you're giving your baby away, your thing away to somebody else to lead. And then, once you go through the transition, to me that's the harder part, that's where the emotions kick in. Because so and I've said this to the church, I've said this to Jason, who took my place I had to for the first couple of years, just constantly be asking God for forgiveness and saying God, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 17:00

Pride is getting a hold of me again, because what would happen? I planned and raised lots and lots of money for the church after I left to be able to build some new buildings and open new locations. And so, as I'm gone and those new locations are being announced and new buildings are being announced, there's no, nobody's saying that David did for us. And so I'm sitting there going oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. Does everybody notice me? I'm the one that did that, and it's not about me and it never was about me.

Speaker 2 17:25

But that's the temptation, that's what pride wants you to do, or, um, yeah, and so just so many little situations where I just want to go. Am I getting the recognition or the acknowledgement that my pride wants, when in reality it's not about me, it's about the church, it's about what God is doing in the church, and so you? Just. That was the biggest shock, and surprise for me was the emotion, because I thought I had that under control and the emotion truly is pride, and I thought that was not an issue for me, but it turned out it was bigger than I thought.

Speaker 1 17:56

And it typically always is right, true, yeah, exactly Exactly. Well, thanks for being transparent about that. I think that's important because you know regardless yes, you were pastoring a church whether it's a church or whether it's a corporate entrepreneur, whatever a founding entrepreneur, whatever it is, there are things that need to happen and if you can't, you know, get through that prideful and really step into humility, it's never going to work out well.

Speaker 2 18:31

Exactly yeah, and the biggest piece of that probably Kelly is choosing your successor. Exactly yeah, and the biggest piece of that probably Kelly is choosing your successor, identifying your successor, and so that was probably the biggest thing that we needed to figure out as an organization. So I'm a big proponent of time in succession, and if you start planning early enough, then you have more opportunities for who's going to step in and take your place when you step away, and it wasn't fully my choice, but I definitely could recommend and say this is why I thought somebody would be appropriate for it, and so one of the things early on that I learned was that, if you want the organization to continue on the same path, that it's going on in the same trajectory, if you like the direction of the church, or you like the direction of the organization, then you do everything you can to hire internally somebody that's already in the organization, somebody that already has the DNA to lead the organization forward. If you don't like the direction, then hire externally, because somebody new is going to come in. They'll take it a new direction. What that also means, though, kelly, is if you hire somebody externally, even if you like the direction you're going, then the new person is ultimately at some point going to change the direction you're going, then the new person is ultimately at some point going to change the direction, and I don't think they do it maliciously. They come in, they use the same terminology, the same language as you're using and they dream about the future together, but their dream is going to be just a little bit off from where you're heading, and so it will change the direction.

Speaker 2 19:48

So, very early on, as a board, we said we wanted to continue in the same direction that we were going, which meant then that we were going to hire internally, and so that meant looking at our staff and we have a staff of about 300 people and saying who do we think has the potential to step in and lead the church forward? And so the first person that I chose. When I brought this name to the board and told him why I thought he would be my replacement, they just kind of were shocked and really sad silence. And then they said, no, we don't think he's the one. And so I said well, why? And they named five or six things they felt like he was deficient in, and so then I just determined that, okay, I'm going to go to work on those five or six things and take those deficiencies away, make them strengths for him, and then we'll come back and see what happens.

Speaker 2 20:32

And because we were planning out 10, 12 years in advance, then we had time to work on this. And the danger of not planning early is if you wait for a year ahead of time and I'll watch guys six months a year and then they'll finally start talking about it. Or they'll just say I'm going to announce to my organization, my church, and in six months I'm stepping away. There's no time to develop somebody. And church, and in six months I'm stepping away. There's no time to develop somebody. And so unless you've got somebody standing there and waiting, it's not going to be internal, it'll be external and your organization is going to change directions. So that was a real big one for me.

Choosing and Developing a Successor

Speaker 1 21:03

And so important that development piece, because you may not ever have somebody who is going to be 100% exactly who you feel should be the person to take your place. But if you do as you said, you know you have that time and somebody may say, oh my gosh, 10 to 12 years, I don't have 10 to 12 years. You can still have a really great development plan for your successor in three to five years and be able to work that for sure.

Speaker 2 21:32

Yeah, and you don't even have to do all the developing yourself, because there may be areas where you go. That's not even my area of expertise, but in Jason's case one of it is he just needed more formal theological biblical education. So we were able to send him off and get him a seminary degree. One of it was communication style, and so he just. There were some issues that he struggled with, and so I was able to work with him on that.

Speaker 2 21:54

One of them was just we're a very large church with a very large budget and so the financial acumen to be able to lead, and so we actually enrolled him in a group for senior executives for two years where he was around business leaders for two years to watch how they acted and how they thought. So we were able to take those things and turn them into from weaknesses to strengths. So by the time I brought Jason's name back to the board about seven years later, they were like of course he's definitely the guy that ought to do it, but that never would have happened. And what I listened to for sure, pastors all the time, but I think it happens with business leaders too, where they'll look at their staff and they'll go. I don't have anybody that could step in right now and you want to say you're right, you don't have anybody that could step in right now, but three years from now, five years from now, could you develop somebody, and so that's the piece that we miss, I think so often.

Speaker 1 22:46

You know you mentioned something important, you know that you had the budget to do this, and I think it's important for organizations to truly look at what their budget is, and are they allowing the budgeting, the dollars, for actual development, not necessarily just training, but developing their people?

Speaker 2 23:02

on a consistent, basis.

Speaker 2 23:04

Exactly, yeah, and there's so many different ways we can develop.

Speaker 2 23:06

I mean, part of it is just mentoring and having somebody walk alongside you and watch what you're doing. Part of it is giving them opportunities, and so sometimes, as key leaders, we are hesitant to let somebody under us fail, and so we don't ever give them the opportunity. It's so easy to think that somehow I can do it better than everybody else, and sometimes that may be true, but sometimes it's not. But even if it is 10 other people doing more things that I could ever do, even if they're not as good as I can do, it is better than me trying to do everything myself. And so the only way you can scale an organization is to develop other leaders, give them opportunities, and if they fail, they fail, but that's how they learn and you don't have to let them make huge failures. You can guide them and give them opportunities. So they small and they just trip up instead of make something that's gonna be detrimental to the organization. So there's ways to do that by giving them lots of opportunities.

Speaker 1 24:00

It's amazing. Well, there's so much within this conversation that I know our audience is just going to love those practicalities of really thinking about it. First, you have to think about it right. You have to understand what it is. You have to think about what is your timing. You have to think about who is it going to be as far as a successor. You have to think about developing that person. You have to make sure that the organization is going to be set up. You talked about that. Financial aspect is truly important, really reflecting on you yourself and are you being prideful? You know, stepping into humility, all these things that typically, when you think of succession planning, aren't there, and so I truly appreciate that.

Speaker 2 24:46

Yes, Well, kelly, I was going to say I will listen to leaders, pastors specifically. They'll talk about when they're going to step away and their reason for stepping away is when my kids are finished with college. Or my kids it'll be younger leaders and they'll say well, when my kids graduate from high school, then I'll think about a different role. And I kind of go so wait a minute, kids graduate from high school, then I'll think about a different role and I kind of go so wait a minute, the trajectory of your church or the trajectory of your organization is all contingent on when your son or daughter graduates from high school or college. And I go, there's got to be something bigger than that out there. And so that's where we have to look at the organization and say what's best for the organization. And so, even in my case, I had a 10 or 12 year plan. We were following it but didn't know exactly when it was going to happen. And once Jason, my successor, was ready, once the finances were where we needed to be organizationally, we'd made the changes. I wasn't ready to retire. And the hardest thing for me and even for Ruth, she would keep saying you're too young, you're too young, you're not ready. You've got more to give. You need to hang in there. And I was like, yeah, but now is the time that the church is ready for this, and Jason was ready. And so trust is a huge piece of this with the person that's going to succeed you, because I could have decided when he and I had talked about a time range. I could have said you know, I'm going to hang on another three or four years, just keep waiting for me. So he had to trust that I wasn't going to do that. I had to trust him, as I was developing him, that he wasn't going to bail out for another opportunity because there were other opportunities there. And so trust is a huge, huge piece of this. The congregation or the organization has to trust you that you're doing what's best in their interest. And yeah, so there's so much there.

Speaker 2 26:20

And you know, again, for the organization, I stepped away the 1st of November three years ago, two years ago, and even that was calculated. Christmas and Easter are the two big, big times for churches, and so every pastor wants to be there for Christmas, because in our case, that's 40,000 people that are going to be participating, and so it would have been easy for me to say, well, I'll step away after Christmas so I can be with 40,000 people for my farewell kind of address, and just decided, no, is that the right way, because we have a lot of people that are visiting over Christmas. Is it better that they see me and see me leaving, or is it better that they see Jason and Jason coming and see what's the future of the church? So I said, okay, I'll not speak to the 40,000 people, I'll let Jason do that. And so it's just all these little decisions of saying let's put the church first, the organization first, as opposed to myself and I don't want to make it sound like I wasn't thinking about myself at all because I was. I was making sure, yeah, I was making sure that there was a financial plan for me moving forward and so. But that's where the board was able to work with me and say we'll take care of you.

Speaker 2 27:30

I would say to Kelly on that, especially in churches, make sure it's in writing, because there are all types of horror stories of leaders who thought they had something worked out with their board and they verbally had talked about what they would do and then a year later, two years later, memory fades and it's like I don't remember us saying exactly that. Or new board members come on and they say we weren't even here for that and so I was advised and what we did. It's all in writing and it's legal documents that were signed off on by attorneys and so it's all there, so that those kinds of things don't happen. And we'd like to think altruistically of pastors and churches that, oh, that nothing like that would ever go wrong. It does all the time, and so we've got to be smart and think through and plan for the future that way.

Speaker 1 28:13

That's right. We can't just have our succession plan in our head. Exactly Document document, document, yeah, very much. So it's your roadmap document, very much so, and it's your roadmap it becomes a roadmap. It's a working document when you start that succession plan. It is a working document for you, the leader, but also, like you said, you talk about the organization and everybody's on the same page.

Transitioning Leadership Successfully

Speaker 2 28:39

This is what's happening when and mine was a real simple one pager and it was amazing how closely we followed it. A couple of other things I'll say real quick, though. Kelly, I did not want the boards because we were starting 10 or 12 years out. I didn't want every board meeting to have to talk about succession, and I didn't want every board meeting for the board members to say how's it coming, what are you doing, what are your plans? And so we formed a smaller sub team of four people, and those four people happened to be all former chairman of the board. So it was people that the board trusted. They were people that I trusted and worked closely with, and so that team of four and I would meet twice a year for the first eight or nine years, never telling the board what was going on other than we're meeting, we're working on a plan. And they trusted that team. That team trusted me and I trusted them, and so trust is a huge piece of this.

Speaker 2 29:28

And then we didn't even announce to the congregation so actually the board it was a year before I was going to announce that I was going to step away that we told the full board.

Speaker 2 29:37

Here's the plan that we're recommending, here's who we're recommending. And so then at that point the full board vetted Jason and spent six months with him to make sure he was the right person, and then, a year before I stepped away, we announced it to the congregation and announced Jason was going to be presented as my successor. The church voted on him two weeks later and then we took a year to transition, and the first six months I was still the primary leader, and then the last six months I kind of stepped back, let Jason start leading, and then I was away from the church for a full year and I thought that being away from the church was more for the church to get used to me not being around. I think it probably was as much for me, where had I been around, I would have probably dabbled in things that I shouldn't have been dabbling in and gotten away. So being away was real important.

Speaker 1 30:25

Oh, dabbled in things that I shouldn't have been dabbling in and got away, and so being away was real important. Oh my gosh. You know that transition piece is so crucial.

Speaker 1 30:30

You know you're not just throwing somebody on and say okay, unless it's an emergency plan but if it is a succession plan really helping that new leader new in that position be confident in their role yes, or new in that position be confident in their role yes, having you, you know, to mentor or whatnot, but really raising their confidence that this is now theirs right, you're lifting them up, up and into that.

Speaker 2 30:55

And that's what's so hard is because it is theirs now, and so the first even until actually just this last Easter so two and a half years later was the first Easter that, when Jason was up on the stage teaching, I thought, okay, I'm not, but up until then I kept thinking I should be up there doing that, and so it took a while to get used to that and realizing this is his and everything that he's doing to make it his is the stuff that gets my pride. And yet it's the very thing I want and I've worked so hard for him to do. And I've known Jason for 20 years. He's been on our staff. He's like a son to Ruth and I.

Speaker 2 31:30

The last five years he and I were inseparable and even now we still are close and he will connect with me almost, if not more than, once a month on a monthly basis, and he'll ask questions never about make a decision for me, but it's how did you think about? These type of scenarios is what he always wants to know, and I try to be real careful. I said I will not ever reach out to you about something that I see. If you reach out to me, that's great, but I'm not going to be bugging you, and so sometimes that's hard because you all see things. It's hard not to sit and go oh, what about this or that? And want to say something, but I just I stay out of that and I think that's been a good thing and so he's doing a great job and it's exciting to see him excel for the first.

Speaker 2 32:12

As we announced it, because we were together all the time. If we were walking through the church, because we were always together, it was hard for people in the church to know even how to respond because, as it had been announced, they'd want to tell me oh, we're going to miss you so much in 30 years of history, but then Jason's there, so they couldn't fully say they're going to miss me and they couldn't fully get excited about Jason because I'm standing there. And so finally we said you know what, when we're walking around, we need to be separate so people can say whatever they need to say to each of us. But we also just constantly are in communication and just trust was a huge piece again.

Speaker 1 32:43

What a success.

Speaker 2 32:46

It has been thus far. It's been real cool to see, and I joked with Jason and said you know what? Whether I ever get to be a level five leader or not is now contingent on you to make sure things are successful. But he's doing a great job and it's fun to see that Well, david, thank you so much for coming on Conversations.

Speaker 1 33:02

This has been delightful and I would love to be able to point people to you. If they have questions about succession planning or about leadership or GLN. Where can I tell them to go? In the show notes.

Speaker 2 33:15

Yeah, they just go to globalleadershiporg, and it's just David Ashcraft at davidashcraft at globalleadershiporg. And so the GLN. Real quick, let me just tell you, kelly, I had not had plans for that. I had been on the board of the GLN for about six years. We had hosted at our church the summit for about 20 years, so I knew it real well. And it went through a leadership change about three months after I went through my leadership transition. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do and probably a couple of things happened. One was at home and I was spending much more time at home than I had before and at some point Ruth sat me down and she said you need to go find something else to lead. And then she said and it's not me, and apparently I'd been trying to guide her around the house more than she needed or wanted. And so she said go find something else to lead. About that time I don't know her but I like her.

Speaker 2 34:07

Yeah. So about that time then the GLN was going through a transition. She says when she heard about that transition she never said it to me, but she thought, oh, that's where David's going to be next. As the board started talking to me about that potential, I'm thinking, oh, how's Ruth going to feel about this? And so for about three or four days I hem-hawed, waiting for just that perfect opportunity to say what would you think about my stepping into this role? And you know how those opportunities are. It just never felt right. So finally I just kind of blurted it out and once I did she was like well, that's what I assumed was going to be you. And so that's been a great transition for me.

Speaker 2 34:42

And the Global Leadership Network is really all about just helping leaders excel in the role they're in. We focus first on pastors and churches because we feel like if a pastor can excel as a leader, then his church is going to thrive, and if his church thrives then the community is going to be different. And so that's our first focus. But the leadership content and the faculty that we bring in each year for the summit is world class content and the faculty that we bring in each year for the summit is world-class. It's ministry leaders, but it's also education leaders, so Harvard professors or Ivy League professors coming in. It's top 100 businesses, organizations, their CEOs or presidents, so it's the best faculty you could find. But the principles are applicable whether you're in a church, a nonprofit, or you're in a business setting, and so it's been exciting for me to be a part of that and just to help that grow and move forward.

Global Leadership Network Vision

Speaker 1 35:33

Well, thank you so much again and until next time. You keep doing great things and we'll see you soon.

Speaker 2 35:39

Kelly, thanks for the opportunity. Good talking to you.