Christian Business Concepts
Christian Business Concepts
Raising Up Your Number Two: A Biblical Guide to Leadership Development
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Developing a trusted "Number Two" in your business isn't just smart strategy—it's biblical stewardship at its core. In this illuminating episode, Harold Milby provides a comprehensive roadmap for identifying, developing, and empowering your successor with godly wisdom guiding every step.
The journey begins with finding someone who possesses both character and capability. While competence matters, qualities like integrity, humility, and trustworthiness form the foundation of effective Christian leadership. Harold shares practical assessment methods to evaluate potential candidates, along with critical pitfalls to avoid—like selecting someone too similar to yourself or overlooking quieter achievers who might be diamonds in the rough.
Drawing from his own extensive experience as a Number Two leader for over two decades, Harold offers unusually candid insights into this vital relationship. His personal stories reveal how being stretched beyond his comfort zone by a mentor who believed in him created profound growth opportunities—a pattern you can replicate with your own emerging leaders.
The episode weaves together practical business wisdom with spiritual guidance, examining the biblical model of Moses and Joshua as the ultimate example of godly succession planning. Through intentional mentoring, progressive responsibility, and public affirmation, Moses prepared Joshua to lead with confidence and divine purpose—a pattern every Christian business leader should consider.
Whether you're currently searching for your organizational second-in-command or looking to strengthen your existing leadership pipeline, this episode provides the framework you need to honor God while ensuring your business thrives beyond your tenure. Discover how developing others becomes an act of faith that extends your impact far beyond what you could accomplish alone.
Welcome to the Christian Business Concepts with your host, harold Milby. Christian Business Concepts is dedicated to guiding companies and business owners in becoming effective, efficient and successful through God's Word and godly principles. Now, here's your host, harold Milby.
Speaker 2:Thank you, kelly, and welcome everyone to this week's Christian Business Concepts podcast. I'm your host, harold Milby, and each week I try to discuss topics and biblical principles that, when you apply them, I think will help you find true godly success. And today it's my prayer that this podcast encourages you, that it empowers you and enlightens you as you listen. Now, this week, I'd like to give a big shout out to Sherman Texas, right here in the United States. We appreciate all of you there in Sherman Texas who have downloaded so many podcast episodes, and we are just hoping that will be a blessing to you, as we do with all of you who download these podcasts around the world each week. We're so thankful. We're thankful to the Lord for each and every one of you. We hope you'll just continue to help us to reach our goal of reaching over 1 million people with this message of a godly success through applying these business biblical principles, of a godly success through applying these business biblical principles In our company spotlight.
Speaker 2:This week, I want to talk about Forever 21. Forever 21, it's a fashion retailer that was founded in 1984 by a husband and wife team, actually Do Won Chang and Jen Suk Chang. Their Christian faith has always guided their approach to running their company, forever 21. And in an interview recently with CNN, do Won Chang expressed his desire and their desire to share the love of God with their customers and their employees, and that really reflects their intention. They've got an intention to lead with a really faith-based perspective and that's their desire desire. Their deep commitment to their relationship with God is not only really reflected in their business and in their work with their employees and their care for their employees, but even in their charitable giving. They give them to a lot of charities and they're really trying to help those charities. But they also put scriptures on the bottom of their shopping bags. So you know they're trying to live out their faith. They're a great example of what a Christian business ought to be. So remember that name, forever 21, and we hope that you'll participate in visiting their stores and buying from them, and we want to support them as a Christian business. That's what this is about and that's what our podcast is about.
Speaker 2:So, as a Christian business leader, you're called to not only have that business and start and run that business, but you're called to steward the people and the resources that God has really kind of entrusted you with, and part of that stewardship involves preparing the next generation of leaders, and so I want to talk today a little bit about raising up a number two person. This is a trusted person who can share your responsibilities and, if really needed, they can step into your role. You know, today I'm going to share kind of a step-by-step guide, first to identifying who that person may be and then developing them, empowering them and preparing them to be a number two. All the whole. While that you're doing this, you're also seeking God's counsel and aligning with those biblical values.
Speaker 2:You know, I spent a long part of my career as a number two. That's kind of what I felt like I was called to. So I came alongside and I did this for one person for a long time and was his number two and actually enjoyed that more than anything I've ever enjoyed in my life, to be honest. And this person he had more than one number two. He had about three of us and we were his number two person and he came to each one of us differently for different things. You know, throughout those years and you know I just took that opportunity to learn, to grow, to stretch, to be stretched. He was really good at that, and I think that's part of what you do.
Speaker 2:And so in today's dynamic business landscape, we'll say you know, leaders are. Often, you know, you get consumed by just the daily operations. It can really cause you to neglect a vital responsibility, and that's developing these future leaders. You know, a number two person is not just a backup, but they're really a strategic asset that's essential for your organizational success. I believe that this individual should step in during, maybe, a crisis. They're there to support that critical decision-making and ensure continuity during leadership transitions. That's something that's also very important, and research from the Harvard Business Review indicates that only 30% just think about that. Only 30% of organizations feel confident in their leadership pipeline. You know, which really kind of highlights this urgency that I think we need to have for a proactive approach to developing a really capable number two. You know Richard Branson, who's the founder of Virgin Airlines and Virgin Group. He said one time he said the best leaders know their success depends on surrounding themselves with people who are smarter, more capable and ready to step up. A strong number two is essential for that. So I believe that most of your great leaders and great business operators understand the importance of having a strong number two. They deliver significant benefits to both the leader and the organization. So a good number two will give you that operational support. It really frees up your time to focus on strategic priorities. You know, when you've got a good number two they could do a lot of the strategic operational things that need to be done and that kind of gives you that opportunity to really focus on the vision and through the strategies that you need to have in the business.
Speaker 2:Uh, it gives you a lot of good perspectives. Uh, it really uh, uh, uh creates uh team morale. Uh, you get that because, uh, you know it. It kind of lets people see that you have a commitment uh to growth, to personal growth and development of people within the organization. And then it also gives you this organizational resilience because it provides stability and continuity during, you know, a planned either a planned or even an unexpected transition.
Speaker 2:So you've got to identify this right person. That's the first thing that's got to happen. You've got to identify this right person. That's the first thing that's got to happen. You've got to identify who they are, you know, and choosing this right person uh is a critical decision, uh, and, and this individual will play a pivotal role in your organization and may one day even lead the organization. So the selection is very important and it requires prayer and discernment and a focus on both character and capability. So here are some of the qualities that you need to look for for a number two.
Speaker 2:When you're identifying this potential person, you need to seek individuals who exhibit these kind of qualities I'm going to share with you. So, first of all, you need to look for a person with integrity, honesty and ethical behavior and a strong moral foundation. That's very key, according to Proverbs 10 and 9. And then there's humility. You know you've got to have a willingness. This person needs to have a willingness to learn. They've got to have a willingness to serve other people and prioritize the mission that you have for their organization over their personal, what their personal gains may be or personal desires may be. So you've got to have humility. And there's companies that I've worked for that that's the key. That's one of the things that they look for. There's a lot of people they have passed on, you know, even though they've been maybe a better person than their number two is. But because the number two is more of a humble person, they fit their culture and their company a little bit better. So that's important. But you want to look for competence. You know they've got to be competent. Of course they've got to have the skills and the knowledge and experience that are needed to perform well. And you know that's really what 1 Timothy, 3 and 10 says Loyalty.
Speaker 2:You know you've got to have a commitment to an organizational's values and visions, with a, with a really. You know your desire as a number two person would be to to have a, a just a really similar vision or a willingness to back up the vision of the leadership there. And then you need to look for leadership potential. They've got to have this potential. They may not step into that role right off the bat as the number two. You may have to groom them, you may have to prepare them, but you've got to look for that leadership potential. And then you've got to have a trustworthiness. There needs to be alignment with your company values. That's got to be important and that's got to be there. And they've got to have a certain amount of strategic thinking. They've got to be able to look at things through a strategic mind and make decisions and things strategically. You've got to see that big picture. They've got to see that, and they've got to make decisions with more of a long-term type of vision that they have when they make those decisions. They've got to have a long-term impact when they make those strategic decisions.
Speaker 2:And next would be the adaptability. That's something you need to look for. Look for somebody that's adaptable. They're flexible, they can really thrive in a changing environment, and then they can embrace new challenges. So then, if you find these qualities in a person, you've got to assess those qualities. You have to look at them. How deep are they? How much in depth are they in these qualities? You can use a lot of different methods when you evaluate candidates, but I find that these are the ones that you want to use. So, first of all, observation, so you can watch a person and watch how they handle challenges, watch how they interact with others and watch how they approach their work.
Speaker 2:I've always said, you know, there's two types of people that work. There's those who lean into their job and those who lean out, and what I mean by that is, those who lean in are always aggressive in their work and they're always looking for ways that they can accomplish their work, whereas somebody who leans out is always looking for ways not to do their work, and so you want to look for somebody that leans in so you can observe this person for a period of time Maybe there's multiple people that you're watching and then you want to get feedback. That's the next way that you can assess these qualities, so you can gather a lot of insights from people they work with with supervisors, with team members and talk about their character. You know kind of talk about their performance there's nothing wrong with that and then get feedback. And then next look at their performance reviews. Your company should be doing performance reviews. If they're not, they should be. So look at their past achievements, look at how they've grown, and then you can assess their consistency and potential. If you've got somebody that has a positive performance review this year but the next two years they don't and then the next year they do, then you may want to take a pass on that person because you're looking for consistency.
Speaker 2:And then another way you can assess these things is to actually interview them. Just sit down and talk to them, tell them what you're looking for and then discuss what their goals are, discuss their values and discuss what their vision is and make sure they align, make sure they line up with yours, with your organization's mission. That's important and then increase responsibilities. You've got to test their capabilities and you know my boss that I spent 23 years or 21 years with, I should say he was a master at stretching people. There were so many times that when he would come to me with something, I would think to myself as I walked out of his office you know, I can't do this, I don't think I can make this work, I don't think I can do it. But he had a lot of confidence in me and he challenged me a lot to do things and it really stretched me. It really helped me to enhance my abilities, increase my abilities and my knowledge, and that's what you want to be able to do. So you can do that with them and you can help them by increasing their responsibilities. And so those are some of the things that you can do to evaluate them.
Speaker 2:And you know there's several pitfalls that you have to look for when you're doing a number two and you've got these are mistakes that you just have to look for. So make sure, number one, that you select you don't select someone that's just like you. You know that's going to create some blind spots in your leadership. You want to find people that are not like you. You know you're like you, right? So you don't need to have a mimic or have a mini me, if you will. What you want to do is find people who are different, have different perspectives, have different experiences. You want somebody different than you so you can have a well-rounded leadership team. So find somebody that's not like you.
Speaker 2:Another mistake that we make is overlooking quieter people, people that are a little bit more quiet, and what we do is we go to the people that are more vocal, that they're more visible employees. A lot of times, there's a lot of gems out there, there's some really gold out there in your factories or in your companies, in your organizations, or maybe not in your organization, but they're the quiet person. They're not the one that everybody knows and hears, but they're the ones that get things done. So don't overlook those type of achievers and go after the people only that are vocal and visible and then ignoring diversity. That's going to limit your innovation. It's going to limit those fresh perspectives. So you want diversity and then the last thing you have to watch as a pitfall is rushing that decision. You don't need to rush the decision. If you don't have a number two right now, it's not going to hurt anything to wait months later to find the right person. Don't rush into it. Take your time. Take your time, read James 1 and 5. That'll give you a good perspective on that.
Speaker 2:So now you've identified them and you've picked them, and you have that number two, how do you develop them? How do you spend time and you develop this person once you've identified them? Because development is about building their skills. It's about shaping their character and deepening their faith and preparing them to lead with confidence and with godliness. Those are important factors, especially when we're talking now. We're talking about Christian businesses.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that you do is you mentor them. That's going to be the foundation for their development. You want to be a mentor to that person. You need to have regular one-on-one meetings so that you can give them guidance and support. Now, the person that I worked for used to come into my office every morning. He'd come into my office every morning. We'd have short you know little short meetings. Sometimes they were 15 minutes, sometimes they were 45 minutes, and we'd talk about a lot of things. We talked about personal things, but we would talk about work things. He would challenge me, he would ask me how I was going to handle certain situations. He would give his support or his input. But you want to mentor that person, so hold regular meetings.
Speaker 2:And then you want to share your experiences, share your successes. Now, when you do that, don't just share successes, you want to share your failures too, because we all learn through failure. We probably learn more through failure than we do through success. And so you want to be able to share your failures with that person so that you can give them some really practical wisdom. And then you want to encourage them to seek God's direction as they go through this journey direction as they go through this journey. You want them to view their role as really a calling. You can read Colossians 3, 23 through 24 on that. But I can tell you from my own experience, I felt like being that number two was a calling. It was a calling on my life. That's what I knew I was supposed to be doing and that's what I did. And I think that it's important that you understand that it is a calling, or that they understand it is a calling.
Speaker 2:So the next thing that you do, besides mentoring, is you do training. So you've got to support them. You've got to support their growth, and you can do that either through formal education you can recommend courses or certifications that are relevant to what they're doing. You can send them to workshops and you can send them to conferences. Give them some good access to these kinds of leadership events and especially if you can find those that are integrating faith with business I think that's key. And then, provide reading materials. You know the one company that I worked for. You know they had a whole library and so they provided great material, reading material, a lot of books, but I would throw in there also devotionals, anything else that would help build both their professional and their spiritual maturity. I think that's important.
Speaker 2:And the next thing you've got to do is you've got to provide some opportunities for growth. This is where you get to stretch their abilities. So you want to give them some challenging projects, maybe some things that require initiative and a lot of problem solving, but you want to assign that task to them, that project to them. You want to give them those leadership roles and teams or projects that gain a lot of hands-on experience. That's important, you know expand their responsibility and that helps them to really broaden their perspective.
Speaker 2:And then you want to get feedback from them and evaluation, and so you want to help them. You want to make sure you got regular check-ins with them. You want to talk about their progress, talk about things that are challenging them, ask them what's the most challenging thing you're dealing with. So spend a lot of time asking good questions and then make sure that you have good formal performance reviews, make sure you help them set the goals and you've got a way to measure their growth and you just want to, you know, be honest with them and them be honest with you as you have this feedback. And then, lastly, what you want to do is you want to seek God's guidance, according to Proverbs 3, 5, and 6,. I think it's important that you encourage that person that's your number two to pray, to reflect throughout this growth process and remind them that leadership is a spiritual journey as much as it is a professional one. So that's really important.
Speaker 2:And then the next thing that you need to do is you need to empower them. I've seen that happen time and time again the leader will do everything, the owner will do everything up to this point, but then they won't empower them, they won't let them have that responsibility. So you want to empower them. It means you've got to trust them with a lot of responsibility and you've got to trust them with decision-making authority. And I worked for a person very shortly. It was a very short period of time and before I understood he hired me as a number two person. But he never would let me have the opportunity to make decisions, and even when they were simple decisions and I would make those decisions, I always got called into his office and he was somewhat upset that I made these decisions without him. Some of these decisions were made even when he was out of the country and he was upset about it. And these were decisions that we had already talked about and we knew that if ABC happened, then we made the decision and those things happened and I made the decision.
Speaker 2:But some people just don't want to empower the people that they have or that number two person, and so they've got to be able to lead independently. That's the only way they're going to strengthen themselves with the confidence and the competence that they really need. You've got to empower them. So you do that by delegating. You delegate by clearly assigning those tasks to them and outlining very specifically what your expectations are. That's important. And then you've got to build trust. You've got to do that through having these good, honest, open communications with them and it really creates this collaborative you know I'm talking about collaborative environment all the time, because this important is powerful within an organization and then you want to get regular feedback from them and you want to make sure you encourage their efforts.
Speaker 2:And then you want to set clear expectations. That's the next thing, clear expectations. You want to have them understand what's expected of them. And then you want to make sure you have accountability. You've got to review their progress on a regular basis and you've got to address any kind of problems right away and you've got to offer constructive things that you can help them with when those expectations aren't met. And so you've got to do that and you've got to recognize and celebrate what their contributions are. That's so important, even in the accountability process. And then again you seek God's guidance. Encourage that person that's your number two to seek his wisdom. Remind them to lead, but lead as a servant and be like Christ. In Mark 10, verse 42 through 45, he talks about this.
Speaker 2:So some of the best practices, I think, for practicing empowerment is. You know, you kind of start small. You know, delegate some smaller tasks first before you increase their responsibility. Don't go from zero to 100 miles an hour right off the bat. The next thing you want to make sure you're transparent. You know, share your thought process, make sure they understand why you're asking them to do what they're doing. That's important. That helps them to learn and to grow and then again celebrate their successes and then, when you do have to correct them, be gracious about it. You know, deal with the mistakes, but do it with kindness, do it with clarity, don't just come down on somebody like a hammer, but do it graciously. You know, I've seen number twos get berated in front of employees and in front of those that they're in charge of or those that they're supervisor for their supervisor, and that's really something that you should never, never do, unless you just want to have a yes person, unless you just want to have somebody that is not going to be that person that leans in because they'll be afraid to. So those are some of the best practices.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, make sure that you document things, document that process. Maybe you need to have somebody help you write a process for, you know for developing a number two, but have it written down and then, maybe just for a while, maybe for a period of time, just let them shadow you, just let them learn, let them watch, and so you can do that. But you've got to communicate this plan. You've got to have a plan, a written plan, show it to them, tell them why this is what we're doing, here's how we're going to go about it. And then you've got to begin to have that timing, because it might be 12 to 18 months before they're ready to transition into that number two spot. So that's important. So you've got to set that and communicate that timeline to them so that they understand what's going on and don't tell them oh, it's going to be 18 months and it's been 18 years and you still haven't put them in that spot. So that's important.
Speaker 2:So you develop that action plan, have you a good action plan, you know what your needs are, and then set up an action plan of what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. And you're going to have some challenges. You're going to have some challenges. You're going to have resistance from other people. Maybe they think they should have been chosen. I went through that and you're going to have some resistance and you've also got to keep motivating the number two person because they'll wane in their some resistance and you've also got to keep motivating the number two person because they'll wane in their motivation sometimes and you got to help do that, help continue to keep them motivated. And then you've got to encourage them to be independent in their thinking and that's important. So make sure that you do that and help them to handle mistakes.
Speaker 2:You know, a great example is the story of Moses and Joshua. You know they give a great example of raising up a number two and Moses identified Joshua as a very faithful, as a very courageous person and you can read about that in Numbers, chapter 27. And he mentored him, he gave him opportunities to lead, you know, according to Exodus, chapter 17. And he empowered him, he gave him responsibility and what Moses was doing is he was planning for his succession and, you know, and he talked publicly to the congregation, to the people of Israel, about Joshua. He did that publicly and prepared him publicly. You can read about that in Deuteronomy, chapter 31. But they had a great reliance on God throughout that whole process and that is kind of a highlight for the importance of faith in all leadership development.
Speaker 2:So, raising up a number two, it's really an act of faith. It's an act of stewardship, because that's our responsibility as leaders. And when you identify that right person, you develop their skills and their character and you empower them to lead. You're planning for your succession, or maybe the succession of another high-ranking position within the organization. So you honor God when you do this. You honor God when you're preparing that person. So seek his guidance in every step that you take when you're talking about doing this, and you trust, trust God, trust him that he will equip both of you, you and that number two person to fulfill his purpose.
Speaker 2:Well, lord, we come before you right now, lord, and we ask you to grant us wisdom to raise up leaders who reflect your heart.
Speaker 2:Lord, guide us with your spirit and may our efforts glorify you as we build these organizations. Lord, rooted in faith, rooted in service. Lord, help us to apply these principles to do more than just raising up leaders for our business, but we're raising up people that are godly, powerful men and women in their personal lives as well as their careers. And, lord, we thank you for helping us to do that. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Well, thanks again for downloading this week's podcast and I hope you'll help us grow the CBC family and community by sharing this podcast with at least four or five other people you know. Put a link to this podcast on your Facebook, four or five other people, put a link to this podcast on your Facebook page or your LinkedIn page and that'll really help us to grow the Christian Business Podcast community and family. Well, that's all the time we have for today, so until next time, remember that Jesus is Lord and he wants you blessed.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning into this week's Christian Business Concepts podcast. Go to ChristianBusinessConceptscom for more information and resources. Be sure to check out other podcasts that will help you take your business and your personal life to a whole new level of success.