The Puzzle of Successful Succession

I have a sneaky feeling that the reason why I've not seen many succession success stories is that successful people frankly have no idea why they were successful. Well, they obviously think they DO know, but they just haven't met people who have fulfilled all the criteria they mentioned and yet failed. Otherwise, wouldn't it be simple to just find those same qualities in the next generation and pick a leader that does just as well as you or - better - surpasses you?

For instance, God attributed the most important thing about David to be the fact that he was a man after God's own heart. We, on hindsight, attribute it to his heart of worship. However, when he was grooming Solomon, he seemed to think it was wisdom... no wonder wisdom alone didn't allow Solomon to surpass David. I think Solomon was just coasting on David's success (temple, peace, riches and all), and this is seen in his failure to groom his own son Rehoboam (or perhaps he DID try to groom him, just that what he thought he did right was wrong) and also the fact that he married many wives, etc...

I think a huge puzzle in my life has been that of succession. I've not seen many organisations that had a superb leader, and then had a successor to that leader who did just as well (meaning he didn't just MAINTAIN the organisation, but grew it so that it outgrew what the first leader did, like the analogy of the first leader's ceiling being the next leader's floor).

If anyone knows of any such success stories of succession, do let me know!