Garry Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, who held the title of World Chess Champion from 1985 – 2000. He holds the record for the longest time ranked as the world’s #1 chess player. Masters of chess are known for their brilliant, analytical minds, which must see possibilities and think dozens of moves in advance. In his book, How Life Imitates Chess, Kasparov wrote, “Long-term success is impossible if you let your heat-of-the-moment reactions trump careful planning.” It’s the kind of wisdom you would expect from a chess grandmaster.
A leader requires certain characteristics to be successful in life and work. He needs knowledge, the information required to lead. He needs a strategy—His plan for leadership. He needs skills and tactics, the nuts-and-bolts actions he engages in each day to bring about results. He needs insight and discernment, the abilities to see what’s ahead and rise to those challenges, and to recognize dangers confronting him. And then he needs one additional ingredient. He needs wisdom. This is information with timeless value. It grows a leader from merely playing the game of life to becoming a grand champion personally and spiritually.
Wisdom is a combination of knowledge and experience that helps a leader to navigate life and work. When faced with circumstances, decisions, crises or opportunities, we might look for wisdom to help us choose the best course of action. Wisdom is not something you are born with. Instead it is a characteristic that you develop over time through learning, reflection, mentoring, success and failure. You don’t inherit wisdom, but you can gain it. One sure way to find wisdom is to go to the most powerful source for it, and that is God.
God makes an interesting and hopeful promise to man. He says if we ask Him for wisdom, He will give it to us, guaranteed. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” In a sense this is a “shortcut” to wisdom, which must be gained by time and experience.
God’s wisdom is vast. Daniel 2:21-22 speaks of the depths of God’s great wisdom. Daniel says, “He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. When a leader looks to God for wisdom, he receives it based not only on all available information, but on all the information there is, period. God knows everything about everything, so when we read something in Scripture or seek His will or follow His commands, we know it comes from a place of complete knowledge.
Because there is nothing that God does not know, there are no surprises with God’s wisdom. There are no angles He fails to consider, no circumstance He is unfamiliar with, no challenge beyond His understanding. We can gain God’s wisdom by reading His Word, the Bible. Colossians 3:16 confirms, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
God’s wisdom is comprehensible. God Himself is incomprehensible, in many ways far beyond our understanding. But the wisdom He gives us we can understand. We can hear it, learn it and apply it to our lives and leadership. You might talk to a lawyer, or an engineer, or a doctor, someone very educated or experienced, and not understand what they are saying. Their wisdom in the law or medicine or mechanics or some other specialty might be gibberish to you. Not so with God.
Luke 21:15 says, “For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.” Jesus confirms that the wisdom God gives is solid and stands on its own. Others who hear it will not be able to find fault with it. When you live and work by God’s teachings and principles, even your adversaries will not be able to pick apart your values or character. The words of God are dependable. Matthew 7:24 says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
God’s wisdom is good. God will not only give us helpful advice, we can also know that all of His wisdom is good for us. It will always be for our very best and given with His perfect and peaceful intention. Proverbs 3:13-18 tells us, “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”
The good wisdom of God is of great value. Not only is it good, but it provides protection and preservation to the leaders who follow it! Ecclesiastes 7:12 teaches, “For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.” You can know the good wisdom that God gives when you ready and study the Bible, seek the counsel of learned Christians, and pray to God and ask Him for it. God wants you to live and lead in His wisdom!
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The reason we called a leadership transition “succession” is that it is a forward-looking process. Every generation of leader will face new and different obstacles, challenges and goals. Looking back to recreate past success will fail.