Dije had six months left as principal when she found the problem. She had led a Christian girls’ secondary school on the outskirts of Jos for twenty-two years. She had taken over a struggling school with leaking roofs and three hundred students, and she was handing over a respected institution with nine hundred girls, a science block and a waiting list. The board had already chosen her successor, a younger woman who had been vice principal for four years and whom Dije had mentored for most of them. The farewell committee had begun planning a thanksgiving service.
Then, while preparing her handover notes, Dije asked the bursar for a summary of the staff pension contributions. The figures did not add up. After two days of questions, the truth came out. For almost two years, during a difficult period when school fees had come in late, the bursar had been quietly using the money deducted from staff salaries for pensions to pay running costs. He had always meant to put it back. He never had.
Dije sat in her office that evening with the door closed. She had not known. But she had signed the monthly reports without reading the pension schedules closely, because she trusted the bursar and was busy with a hundred other things. And she knew exactly what would happen if she said nothing. In six months she would be gone. Her successor would inherit the debt, discover it some time in her first year, and face the staff, the board and possibly the regulators alone. Dije’s own reputation would remain intact. Her successor’s first year would be a disaster.
She told me later that she was tempted, for about one night. “I thought, I have given this school twenty-two years. Must the last thing people remember be a scandal?” Then she remembered something she used to tell the girls in assembly: that character is what you do when it would be easier to do something else.
The last responsibility of a leader
Most of what we say about leadership concerns how to begin and how to sustain. We talk about vision, calling, perseverance and growth. We say much less about how to end. Yet every leadership assignment has an ending, whether through retirement, transfer, a change of calling, ill health or death. And the ending carries its own particular responsibilities.
A leader’s final responsibility is toward those who will continue the work. Everything you hand over, the people, the finances, the relationships, the unfinished projects, the unresolved problems, becomes their inheritance. A careful, honest handover can serve them well for years. A careless or dishonest one can burden them for just as long.
The final season also brings its own temptations. There is the temptation to settle old scores while you still have power. There is the temptation to make large, hasty decisions to secure your legacy before you go. There is the temptation to take things that are not quite yours, a vehicle, a house, a fund, a list of contacts, on the grounds that you have earned them. There is the temptation to hide problems so that your record looks clean. And there is the temptation, after you leave, to keep control from a distance.
There is a quieter temptation too: to make decisions in the final months that bind your successor. A leader on his way out signs a ten-year contract with a favoured supplier, employs a relative in a permanent post, promises a donor a project the next leader has never heard of, or commits the ministry to a building plan nobody else has examined. Each decision may be well meant. But a leader in his last season should be especially careful about choices whose consequences others will carry. Where possible, major long-term commitments should wait for the incoming leader, or at least be made with their full involvement.
The book of Joshua records a remarkable summary of one leader’s influence: “Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua” (Joshua 24:31). Joshua’s faithfulness reached past his own lifetime into the lives of the elders he had served alongside. That is the kind of legacy worth wanting.
Scripture gives us several leaders who finished their assignments with integrity. Their example shows that legacy is seen in faithful stewardship. A work that cannot stand without the person who once led it is a sign of unfinished stewardship, however impressive it looks.
PunchlineLegacy is measured by how faithfully you stewarded the work and how well you equipped others to carry it on, never by how much it still needs you.
Ye know after what manner I have been with you
When Paul met the elders of Ephesus at Miletus, he knew it was the last time he would see them. He had spent three years in their city. What he chose to say at that moment tells us what he valued most:
And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews: And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you , but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house, Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice how Paul begins: “Ye know.” He appeals to their own observation. He does not ask them to take his word for anything. They had watched him “at all seasons,” from the first day. His integrity was not something he needed to explain at the end, because they had seen it throughout.
That is the first lesson about finishing well. A good ending is mostly the fruit of a faithful middle. Paul could speak openly about his conduct because he had lived openly. Integrity at the end of an assignment is very difficult to manufacture if it has been missing for the twenty years before.
Paul says something similar to the Corinthians: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world” (2 Corinthians 1:12). Notice where that sincerity comes from: “by the grace of God.” A clean conscience at the end of a ministry is the fruit of grace working through ordinary faithfulness over many years. Nobody finishes well by their own strength, and nobody who leans on grace needs to fear the final review.
Notice also what he highlights. “Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears.” He does not list his achievements, the size of the church or the number of converts. He speaks of his manner of life, his humility and his tears. Then he speaks of his faithfulness in teaching: “I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you.” He had given them everything they needed. He had taught “publickly, and from house to house,” in large gatherings and in homes. And the content had been the gospel itself: “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In the verses that follow, Paul speaks of the uncertain future before him: “none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy” (Acts 20:24). He then charges the elders to take heed to themselves and to the flock, warns them of dangers to come and commends them to God and the word of His grace (Acts 20:28-32). His farewell was a handover. He was preparing them to carry on without him.
I have coveted no man’s silver
Near the end of his speech, Paul says something very direct: “I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me” (Acts 20:33-34).
Paul could have claimed support from the church. Elsewhere he insists that he had the right to it. But in Ephesus he had chosen to work with his own hands, so that nobody could accuse him of being in ministry for money. And at the end, he could point to those hands. “Ye yourselves know.”
Then he adds the only saying of Jesus recorded in Acts that is not found in the Gospels: “I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Paul’s financial integrity was part of his teaching. He had shown them how to live.
Samuel, at the end of his long leadership of Israel, stood before the whole nation and said something remarkably similar: “Behold, here I am: witness against me before the LORD, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed?” (1 Samuel 12:3). And the people answered, “Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken ought of any man’s hand” (1 Samuel 12:4).
Could you say that at the end of your assignment? Could you stand before the people you have led and invite them to name anything you have taken unjustly?
This matters especially at the point of departure, because that is when many leaders are tempted to help themselves. The official car is quietly transferred into a personal name. The ministry house is “gifted” by a compliant board. The building fund is used for a lavish send-off. The donor list is copied for a new venture. Some of these things may be appropriate if they are agreed openly, properly recorded and genuinely fair. Churches should honour long-serving leaders generously, including with proper provision for retirement. But anything taken secretly, or decided by people who cannot say no, will cast a shadow over a lifetime of faithful service.
Leaving no hidden debts
The deepest test of integrity at the end of an assignment is honesty about problems. Every leader leaves some things unfinished, and some things broken. The question is whether you hand them over honestly or leave them hidden for your successor to discover.
Paul wrote that he had “renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness” (2 Corinthians 4:2). That is a standard for every season of leadership, and it is tested most sharply at the end, when concealment would be easiest and you will not be around to face the consequences.
An honest handover tells the truth about the state of things. It names the debts, the disputes, the legal risks, the staff problems, the projects that have stalled and the relationships that are strained. It also names your own mistakes, where they are relevant. It says, in effect, “Here is what I am leaving you, the good and the difficult, and here is everything I know that will help you carry it.”
Dije’s situation shows why this matters. She had not committed the wrong. Yet she had been responsible for oversight, and the failure had happened on her watch. Many leaders in that position persuade themselves that disclosure is unnecessary, or that it would only damage the institution, or that someone else should deal with it. All of those thoughts are understandable. All of them leave the weight on someone who had no part in creating it. A leader who discovers a hidden problem at the end of an assignment has a duty to bring it into the light while there is still time to begin putting it right, and while the one who knows most about it is still present to help.
That kind of honesty can be costly. It may damage the way people remember you. It may mean an uncomfortable final board meeting. But it is an act of love toward the one who comes after you, and an act of faithfulness toward the Lord who entrusted the work to you in the first place.
Practical handover matters too. Leave clear records of finances, property, contracts and key decisions. Write down what you know about the people, the history and the commitments that others might not know. Introduce your successor personally to the most important relationships. Make sure passwords, documents and authorities are transferred properly. Agree with the board on what you will and will not do after you leave.
NuggetNone of that is glamorous. But it is the difference between a successor who begins with confidence and one who spends the first year piecing together what was never explained.
Paul’s last letter
Paul’s second letter to Timothy contains the famous words of a leader at the end: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). He looks forward to “a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day” (2 Timothy 4:8).
But read on a few verses, and you find something less often noticed. Paul, facing execution, is still arranging the work:
Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry. And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus. The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee , and the books, but especially the parchments.
Even in his last days, Paul is thinking about who is where and who will carry what. Demas has gone. Crescens and Titus have been sent to other regions. Tychicus has been sent to Ephesus, very possibly to relieve Timothy so that he could travel. Mark is to be brought, because he is useful for the ministry. Paul is still deploying people, still thinking about the churches, still making sure the work is covered after he is gone.
And he asks for his books and parchments. To the very end, he wanted to keep studying and, perhaps, to keep writing. Finishing well leaves plenty of room for activity. It means continuing to serve faithfully within the season you are in, while attending carefully to what others will need.
There is something deeply moving in the request for Mark. Years earlier, Paul had refused to take him on a missionary journey. Now he asks for him by name. A leader who finishes well has often learned, along the way, to see more generously the people he once doubted, and to make room for them in the work that will continue.
Preparing for a house you will not build
David longed to build a temple for the Lord. God told him that his son Solomon would build it instead. David’s response was not to sulk or to try to build it anyway. He gave himself to preparation. “I will therefore now make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death” (1 Chronicles 22:5). He gathered materials, organised the Levites, arranged the musicians and gave Solomon the plans. Then he charged his son:
And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD .
David encouraged Solomon and committed him to God: “the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee.” He did not tell Solomon that he would need his father’s constant guidance. He pointed him to the Lord who would see the work completed.
That is a beautiful picture of legacy. David’s greatest contribution to the temple was something he never saw finished. He prepared the materials and the people, and then he released them. The temple was called Solomon’s temple. David was content with that.
Many leaders find this hard. They want their name on the building, or their portrait in the hall, or their methods preserved for ever. But faithful stewardship measures success by whether the work goes on well after you, not by whether people keep remembering that you started it.
Under the Chief Shepherd
Peter, writing as an older leader to the elders of the churches, gives us a final perspective. He calls himself “also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ” (1 Peter 5:1). He urges them to “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind” (1 Peter 5:2). They are not to be “lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3).
Notice the phrase “the flock of God.” The flock never belonged to the elders. It belonged to God. They were under-shepherds. And then Peter lifts their eyes to the end:
And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
PunchlineThe chief Shepherd will appear. Every leader’s assignment will be reviewed by Him. And the reward He gives is “a crown of glory that fadeth not away.”
That changes the way we think about legacy. Plaques fade. Buildings are renamed. Even the memory of great leaders grows dim within a generation or two. But the reward Christ gives does not fade. The leader who serves for that crown does not need the work to keep depending on him in order to feel that his life mattered. His life mattered because he served the Chief Shepherd faithfully, and the Chief Shepherd will say so.
Paul makes the same point when he speaks of the crown laid up for him, adding that it is “not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8). The reward belongs to every believer who loves the Lord’s return, famous or unknown, including the deaconess who ran a welfare committee for twelve years, the youth leader who handed over to a younger man and the bursar who kept honest books in a small rural church. That should free us from the anxious need to be remembered. The One whose remembering matters will not forget.
Jesus Himself, on the night before His death, spoke to His Father about the people He was leaving: “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept” (John 17:12). And then He handed them back: “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me” (John 17:11). The people were given to Him by the Father, and He returned them to the Father’s keeping. Every faithful leader does something like that at the end of an assignment.
After you hand over
Finishing well does not end on the day of the farewell service. What you do afterwards matters a great deal. Samuel gives us a wonderful model. Even after Israel had chosen a king and Samuel had stepped back from his role as judge, he said:
Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way: Only fear the LORD , and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.
Samuel did not withdraw his love. He promised to keep praying for them and to keep teaching them the good and right way when he had the opportunity. But he no longer governed them. The king did. Samuel’s role had changed from leader to intercessor and counsellor.
That is a healthy pattern for any former leader. In many of our churches and institutions, a retired founder or principal is given a title such as patron, father of the house or life adviser. Such titles can express real honour, and the wisdom of experienced leaders is precious. But a title must never become a way of holding power without responsibility. If you carry such a role, be clear with your successor about what it means and what it does not mean, and let them lead. Pray for your successor. Be available when asked. Speak well of them in public. But do not undermine them. Do not let people bring you complaints about the new leadership so that you can quietly take sides. Do not keep making decisions through loyal friends who still hold office. Do not treat every change your successor makes as a criticism of you. They will do things differently, and some of those differences will be improvements.
If you see something genuinely wrong after you leave, such as doctrinal error, financial impropriety or harm to vulnerable people, you should not stay silent. Raise it through proper channels, with the appropriate people, and with humility. But that is very different from trying to remain in charge.
And give yourself grace. Stepping away from a role you have carried for many years can bring grief and a loss of identity. That is normal. Your worth was never in your title. You remain a beloved child of God, with gifts to use in a new season, and your service can continue in other forms.
Dije called the board chairman the next morning. She told him everything: what the bursar had done, what she had failed to notice, and what it would cost to put right. She asked for an emergency meeting before her departure, not after.
It was the hardest meeting of her career. The bursar was suspended and later dismissed. The board agreed a repayment plan for the pension arrears and informed the staff honestly. Some were angry, and a few of the older teachers said hurtful things to her. She did not defend herself. She apologised for her part and told them what was being done. Then she spent her last four months working with the incoming principal to put the repayment plan in place and to tighten every financial control in the school.
The thanksgiving service went ahead. It was smaller than the farewell committee had first planned, at Dije’s own request. The board offered to name the new library after her. She asked them to name it after the school’s first matron instead, a woman who had served for thirty years without a title.
When I spoke to her a year later, she said that her successor rarely called. “At first that hurt,” she admitted. “Then I realised it was the best report I could have received. The school does not need me. It never belonged to me. I was only keeping it for a while.”
She now teaches a Bible class for young women at her church, and she prays for her successor by name every morning. Like Samuel, she has stopped governing but not stopped caring. And she is waiting, quietly and without fear, for the day when the Chief Shepherd appears.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- If your current leadership assignment ended in six months, what would you be handing over? What problems would your successor inherit?
- Is there anything hidden in your area of responsibility that you would be tempted to leave undisclosed?
- Could you say, as Samuel did, “whose ox have I taken?” What would the people you lead say?
- What does it mean for you to see your legacy in faithful stewardship rather than in the work’s continuing dependence on you?
- If you have already handed over a role, how are you relating to your successor?
This Week
Write a handover document for your current responsibility, as though you were leaving next month. Include the state of finances, key relationships, unfinished projects, known problems and your own mistakes where relevant. Keep it updated every six months. If you have already left a role, write a short note of encouragement to your successor this week, and commit to praying for them by name every day.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, Chief Shepherd of the flock, every assignment I hold belongs to You. Help me to finish well. Keep my hands clean and my heart honest. Give me courage to tell the truth about what I am leaving, and generosity to prepare others for a work I may not see completed. Guard me from the temptation to cling, to take or to control. When my season ends, help me to commend the people to Your keeping, to pray for those who follow me, and to rejoice when the work goes on well without me. And when You appear, may I be found faithful. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.