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Passing the Torch: The Art of Succession Planning

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StrategyDriven Succession and Succession Planning Article | Passing the Torch: The Art of Succession Planning

In‍ the ever-evolving⁣ landscape of business, few things are as crucial as a well-executed succession plan. As ‌seasoned leaders begin to pass the torch to the next generation, the⁣ art of succession planning becomes paramount in ensuring the ⁤continued success and growth of ​an organization. Join us as ⁤we delve into‌ the intricate process of passing ⁢the torch and ‌explore the strategies and ​considerations that go into crafting a seamless transition of power.

Identifying‍ Key Successors within⁣ the Organization

is a crucial aspect of ensuring ‌a smooth transition of leadership. Succession planning is not just about finding someone to ⁤fill a ​role when a leader​ steps down; it is about grooming and developing individuals who have the potential‌ to take ​on ‌greater responsibilities in the ⁢future.

When identifying key ‍successors, it is important to look for individuals who‍ possess the necessary skills, knowledge, and qualities to be successful​ leaders. These are individuals who have shown⁢ potential‌ for growth, have a strong work ethic, and are ⁣able⁤ to adapt to ‍changing ‌environments. ‍By investing‌ in the development⁤ of ⁢these individuals, organizations can ensure continuity and ⁣stability in leadership positions.

Developing ⁢a Comprehensive Succession Plan

Are you prepared to pass ‌the torch ​and ensure the ‍future ⁢success⁣ of your organization? is essential​ for a smooth transition of leadership and sustaining long-term​ growth. By taking the ‌time to strategize and identify key leaders within your organization, you can ⁣pave ⁣the way for a seamless handover of⁤ responsibilities.

Don’t wait ⁤until it’s too ​late to start succession‍ planning.​ Start the process by evaluating the current leadership team and identifying potential candidates for future leadership roles.‍ Invest ⁣in their⁣ development through training ‌and mentorship programs to ensure they are equipped with the skills⁢ and ⁣knowledge needed⁣ to take ‌on higher positions. ​Remember, succession planning is not ‌just about filling a vacancy – it’s about building a strong foundation ‍for the future success of your organization.

Implementing Effective ​Leadership Development Programs

Succession planning ⁢is a critical component ⁢of ‍effective leadership development programs. It involves identifying and nurturing future leaders within an organization ‍to ensure a smooth transition of power when key executives retire or ‍move on.‍ One key aspect of succession planning​ is‍ identifying⁣ high-potential employees who have the skills and qualities needed to step into ​leadership roles.

Another important element of succession planning is providing development opportunities ⁤ for potential leaders to‌ help them grow⁣ and ‍acquire the necessary skills.⁣ This can include mentoring programs, leadership training workshops, and stretch assignments‌ that challenge individuals to⁣ take on new ⁣responsibilities and develop‍ their ​leadership⁤ abilities. By investing in succession​ planning, ​organizations can⁣ ensure continuity of leadership and position themselves‌ for long-term success.

Ensuring Smooth Transition⁣ of Responsibilities

Succession planning is a⁢ crucial aspect of​ ensuring ‍a smooth transition⁢ of responsibilities ​within any organization. It‌ involves identifying‍ and developing ‌potential future leaders, equipping them with ⁣the⁤ necessary skills and knowledge to take on key roles ‌when‌ the time comes. By effectively passing the torch from one generation of leaders to the next, organizations⁣ can ensure continuity, stability, and⁣ continued success.

Key⁣ elements ‌of successful​ succession planning include clear communication, proper training and development programs, and a focus on building ​a ⁣strong ⁢pipeline of talent. It is important ⁤for current ‍leaders to ‍mentor‍ and groom ‌potential successors, providing them ⁣with opportunities ​to learn, grow,⁤ and ​take on increasing levels of responsibility. By investing in⁣ succession planning, organizations can mitigate risks associated with ​leadership turnover and maintain a competitive edge in today’s rapidly ⁣changing business ⁢environment.

Final Thoughts…

As⁢ we’ve explored the delicate art of‍ succession planning, we’ve discovered ​the importance of‌ preparing for the future and ensuring the longevity of ‍our organizations. Embracing this process can lead to a smooth ‌transition of‌ leadership and foster growth and prosperity for ‌years to ⁣come. Remember, passing the​ torch ‍is not just about handing over responsibilities, but about preserving a ⁢legacy⁤ and ⁢setting the ‌stage​ for continued success. So, take the‌ time to plan, communicate effectively,‍ and⁤ nurture the next generation of leaders.‍ The future is bright, and with careful planning, ⁤we ⁢can ensure a⁤ seamless handover of the torch.

StrategyDriven Business Politics Impacts Article | The Consequences of Bad Leadership

The Consequences of Bad Leadership

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StrategyDriven Business Politics Impacts Article | The Consequences of Bad LeadershipAn area of Buenos Aires nicknamed Villa Freud boasts the highest concentration of psychoanalysts per capita in the world. Even the bars and cafe?s have Freudian names, such as the Oedipus Complex and the Unconscious. Many of the residents are therapists, in therapy, or both. In fact, psychoanalysts are only allowed to be therapists if they are in therapy themselves. The requirement creates a self-perpetuating and ever-expanding universe of psychoanalysts and patients. It’s like an inverted – and unhealthy – pyramid scheme. Every new shrink is another shrink’s new patient, and the arrangement keeps both supply and demand perennially high.[wcm_restrict plans=”25541, 25542, 25653″]

I grew up in Villa Freud. Even our dog saw a shrink, though it was always clear to me – perhaps even to our dog – that the dog shrink was really dealing with our problems, rather than our dog’s. When I had to decide on a career, the choice was almost inevitable: I had to become a psychologist.

Growing up in Argentina also nurtured my interest in leadership, especially the problematic type. A century ago, Argentina was the future. It was not just the land of opportunity, but also one of the richest countries in the world, with a GDP per capita higher than that of France and Germany. Yet Argentina has been in constant decline ever since, being one of the few perpetually devolving countries in the world. The main reason? One bad leader after another. So, I asked myself the obvious questions: How can smart and educated people make self-destructive leadership choices, political term after term, without learning the les- sons from previous failures? How can rational people who have their own best interests at heart fall for charismatic con artists who promise them the impossible while pursuing harmful agendas and corrupt selfish interests? Although this depressing state of affairs eventually propelled me to leave Argentina, I promised myself that I would do what it took to understand – and help fix – this toxic side of leadership.

And indeed, today I am a leadership psychologist. Much of my work focuses on helping organizations avoid incompetent leaders and make the already-installed leaders less ineffective. The work has important repercussions. When you get it right, you see enormous benefits to the organization and its people. And when you get it wrong, you get . . . Argentina.

In business, a bad leader significantly affects subordinates by reducing their engagement—their enthusiasm for their jobs and the meaning and purpose people find at work. Global surveys report that a staggering 70 percent of employees are not engaged at work and that only 4 percent of these employees have anything nice to say about their bosses.9 Quite clearly, good leadership is not the norm, but the exception.

The economic cost of disengagement is even more astounding. In the United States alone, lower engagement translates into an annual productivity loss of around $500 billion.10 This estimate is probably conservative, since it is based on large multinational corporations: organizations that actually bother asking employees how they feel about their jobs and that devote considerable time and money to improve how their employees experience work. The average employee in the world is probably even more miserable.

Productivity loss is not the only downside of disengagement. Disengaged employees are also more likely to quit their jobs. Employee turnover incurs a huge burden, including separation costs, damaged morale, and productivity losses associated with the time and resources needed to find and train newcomers. Between 10 and 30 percent of the employees’ annual salary is lost to turnover costs. The figure is even higher for replacing leaders, since top executive-search firms will charge around 30 percent of the leader’s annual salary on top. And turnover is not always the worst-case scenario for businesses. When disengaged employees do decide to stay, they are more likely to misbehave, for example, abusing staff, bending the rules, and committing fraud.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”25541, 25542, 25653″]

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Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders: (And How to Fix It) by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. Copyright 2019 Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. All rights reserved.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Tomas Chamorro-PremuzicTomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief Talent Scientist at Manpower Group, co-founder of Deeper Signals and Metaprofiling, and Professor of Business Psychology at University College London and Columbia University

Do you have the next generation of leaders you need?

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Anxiety is high among organizational leaders that as vital as a new generation of leaders is, many do not feel ready to promote talent.

In a recent survey by Korn Ferry, only 39 percent of those surveyed believed their organizations had the right talent to succeed in today’s changing global environment. One third did not feel their organization is ready to promote its talent at all.

With succession management so critical to driving a competitive advantage and securing a company’s future, what is hindering organizations from preparing for and feeling confident in their succession development efforts?

According to the same survey, based on responses from 100+ senior-level executives from 49 countries, the top issue detracting from talent management efforts is buy-in of a global talent management approach. Why global?

[wcm_restrict]As companies are operating globally, their ability to develop executives who can lead across borders is critical. Effective global succession management, or the practice of identifying up to the third generation of successors for a particular role, requires companies to promote and develop people not only based on ‘what they do’ but ‘who they are.’ That means finding and developing leaders who have a blend of the right competencies and experiences, as well as the right personal traits, such as openness to new ideas, risk taking, and cultural agility; plus a paradoxical blend of motivators such as collaboration and autonomy, status and achievement.

This means that companies need to evaluate the full person, and not just what they are good at. When they do, they will achieve greater success.

What can you do to take a global approach?

  • Dig deeper. Many organizations believe they are taking a global approach, yet find that their talent is still not moving across functions or regions, or that talent management remains siloed. Take a close look at how your organization currently functions and compare it to organizations that are running truly global talent management approaches. What needs to change?
  • Break down the siloes. This allows talent to be seen and owned as an enterprise-wide asset. This facilitates more cross-functional or lateral promotions to ensure leaders gain the key experiences necessary to advance to higher levels of leadership. It also provides leaders with cross-cultural and diversity leadership experience which becomes increasingly more important as organizations take a fluid approach to transferring and promoting talent.
  • Re-evaluate succession planning. Succession starts by identifying which roles are mission critical and then accurately identifying high potential leaders who have the leadership characteristics and motivation to advance into those roles. Not all high performing leaders are high potential and not all leaders want to move up.
  • Drive focused development. While high potential leaders need to develop overall leadership skills, knowing exactly what the challenges are at the next levels and developing against those, will help ensure that they target development to prepare to meet those challenges. It also helps make transitions into new roles easier and less susceptible to derailment.
  • Measure readiness. Developing a leader for a role does not guarantee that he or she is ready to step into that role. By measuring readiness, you can know exactly how far or close a leader is to being fully ready – and also close remaining development gaps.

A global approach to succession will ensure that your organization leverages the full force of leadership talent across the enterprise. It will help you gain confidence that you do indeed have the talent you need to succeed.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember]

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About the Author

Andrés Tapia is senior partner, Leadership and Talent Consulting, Korn Ferry.

StrategyDriven Succession and Succession Planning Article

Leaving On Top

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David HeenanLeaving On Top: Graceful Exits for Leaders
by David Heenan

About the Reference

Leaving On Top by David Heenan examines the exits of large corporate C-level executives; identifying the several actions common to graceful departures. David shares ten lessons from successful transitions including:

  1. Know thyself
  2. Know thy situation
  3. Take risks
  4. Keep good company
  5. Check your ego at the door
  6. Keep learning
  7. Stage your exit
  8. Know when to walk away
  9. Know when to stay put
  10. Start now!

Why You Should Not Buy This Book

Leaving On Top is a niche book focused on large corporation CEOs and celebrities. David makes no effort to translate his departure lessons to fit small company or below CEO-level executives. Furthermore, Leaving On Top is largely a series of stories and does not get to its departure recommendations until Chapter 12. While these are worth considering, David should have presented his ten points up front and dedicated a chapter to each lesson; providing the reader with specific, actionable insights.

Leaving On Top is too niche in its focus and too shallow in its content for most readers. If you are a large corporate CEO, we suggest you read only Chapter 12, an executive summary, or, better yet, call some of your successful peers.

StrategyDriven Succession and Succession Planning Best Practice Article

Succession and Succession Planning Best Practice 3 – Continuing Education

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StrategyDriven Succession and Succession Planning Best PracticeIt is simply not enough that individuals holding senior positions be highly experienced. The narrowness of early career positions and the limitations of time necessarily prevents an individual from being deeply experienced across the full range of functions within the organization. Thus, those relying purely on experience often lack an understanding of the broader spectrum of organization functions and opportunities that would help them be more successful in senior positions requiring multidimensional business understanding.[wcm_restrict plans=”40928, 25542, 25653″]

As indicated in StrategyDriven‘s Succession and Succession Planning Best Practice 2 – Rotational Development Plans, career time constraints and the need to develop a pipeline of talent makes it nearly impossible for one individual to hold every subordinate position prior to ascending to a senior role. Subsequently, temporary assignments, projects and initiatives, and continuing education should be used to create an appreciation for and understanding of the various processes, procedures, techniques and philosophies unique to those positions not actually held. Furthermore, education about the operations and support functions of companies from other industries can offer insight to improvement opportunities that would otherwise not be gained through the narrow experience of a single company’s operations. Continuing education, therefore, becomes critically important to creating a more well-rounded candidate for senior leadership positions.

Consider the following three candidates for a senior level position:

  • the highly experienced manager
  • the highly educated manager and
  • the manager with some experience augmented by ongoing education and continuing training

Overall understanding of the business’s functions, human resources, finance, information technology, marketing, sales, and production are represented by a spectrum. The deeper and richer the understanding and experience with an area the brighter the spectrum. Thus, bright lines represent intimate and nuanced knowledge of an area – that which can be only gained through first hand experience, dimmer lines represent knowledge and understanding of the function – that which can be gained through limited experience and formal training, and no color (black) indicates a cursory understanding of the area. (Figure 1, Individual Knowledge and Experience, depicts the completeness of knowledge and experience for each of the three candidates being considered.)

StrategyDriven Wisdom SpectrumThe Highly Experienced Manager (extensive firsthand experience complimented by pertinent job-specific training)

Notice that an individual relying solely on experience has many brightly colored spectral lines across the entire spectrum of knowledge about a business. In the example provided, the production manager clearly understands the area in which he/she is responsible and some aspects of the support organization which impact production functions such as performance evaluations in the area of human resources, use of production’s supporting scheduling tools in the area of information technology, and the impact of the seasonal sales cycles in the area of sales on production operations. However, between these lines are very dark areas where very little to no understanding exists because this manager perceives no reason to learn more about these functions as they do not directly impact the performance of his/her job. This individual, therefore, cannot consider the organizational opportunities for improvement that might exist in these areas because he/she is so unfamiliar with them as to eliminate them from the realm of possibility.

The Highly Educated Manager (little firsthand experience compensated for by a high level of formal education)

The highly educated but inexperienced person is hindered by a different condition. This individual has a broad range of knowledge across most of the organization’s functional areas but lacks a nuanced understanding of the real life circumstances that challenge the implementation of academic principles. Without the richness and depth of understanding brought by experience, this person is less likely to proactively recognize the real world adjustments needed to successfully implement well understood academic theories. Additionally, these individuals may not as readily see the nuanced interrelationships between business functions. Lastly, the lack of hands-on experience diminishes this individual’s credibility with front line personnel. All of these liabilities hinder this manager’s effectiveness identifying and implementing organizational improvements.

The Well-Rounded Manager (some firsthand experience augmented by ongoing education and continuing training)

The well rounded manager possesses a more balanced background; having a number of high quality functional area experiences augmented by continuing education. This individual’s firsthand functional experience provides him/her the insight to understand why the purely academic solutions he/she knows will often not work as intended when confronted by reality. Experience helps this individual conceptualize how these challenges might be overcome and the theoretical solutions adjusted so to be implemented successfully, a critical gap in the highly educated manager’s background. Education provides the well rounded manager with the knowledge to ‘see’ the possibilities, a sight the purely experience manager does not possess. Hence, the truly well rounded individual represents the optimal in-the-middle solution rather than one at the extremes.

Final Thought…

The ultimate candidate is one that is both highly experienced and highly educated. To achieve this requires ongoing education and continuing training. Over time, this ongoing education will culminate in the individual becoming highly educated while continued job performance will provide the experience. Job performance is a given. Continuing education is the best practices that should be pursued.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”40928, 25542, 25653″]

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