After you ......

Buddhism deals with one of the mostcoplex topic - death , and the way of doing it is very simple imagining every day as your last day and thinking what would I do if this is my last day of life today . For an entreprenuer or an executive who is running a business succession planning should be a similar afair , specially for entrepreneur it is life changing matter to leave the organization they built from scratch , so continously they need to have succession planning in thier mind , what if I leave this company today - who will be the most suitable person to run it after me . In case of family managed businesses answer to this question is crystal clear , Children are going to take over one day and a great deal of effort is spent on grooming children on thier future role from education to th ecorrect experience and mentorship . For organizations which are professionally managed , succession planning and next line leadership is the buzz word of the day and it has been there from more than couple of decades but the success of such programs is always questionable . In very few such organization we will have a clear visibility as who will be running the show after the current leader. Consider example of GE where Jeff immelt had clear step wise vision placed for 3 prospective leaders out of which Jack welch came out as clear winner , some thing similar happened in ICICI recently where 3 strong candidates were mentored for the top post . Such succession plannings brought predictability in the business and hence no knee jerk reaction in the share market when a new leader is announced about whom stakeholders dont have any idea. However it may sound easy to say that one should always be in look out for his successor when he is in top job but thats the beauty of being in top job that you probably never want to leave it ... It is as hard as thinking about end of life ...

If you are a leader , you should be able to follow well:

What could be one of the most turning point of the fight in great Mahabhart story . The Leader of the era Krishna who had been continouslt in the fore front of all the incidents suddenly takes the role of a Charriot driver for his best friend Arjun. It did not take him a split second to decide whether in coming ages it would hurt his image , whether it would immediately demote him from a heavenly deity to just another earthling and even more inferiors in the community , just a charriot driver.

I feel odds have turned other way round because it is this phase of Krishna's life he has delivered the most respected wisdom of Hindu Mythology - Gita . It is in this role he has influenced the entire saga in such a way that no one else could have done so including elmination of Karna or Jaydrath like warriors .
I am trying to think something else as well , Krishna was the leader of entire story , un disputed decision maker for pandavas bu he also comes across as the best follower giving command in the hand of Arjun.
Some one who has already proven leadership skills must also be able to follow well , there will be many hurdles in his way to the follower topmost being his ego self , already been in a position where he has only given orders now putting him in the shoes of order taker will be dificult, what can add salt to injury is if this time some one who has followed you is going to lead you or some one who is not of the same status.

Even though there are all kind of risks associated when a leader steos down to be follower but if he successfully does it with a humble heart than he may emerge a greater leader , almost a legend