Succession Planning and Leadership Development Succession Planning should be an ongoing process identifying and developing people within the organisation to move into leadership positions, either on a planned basis or when a leader leaves at short notice. It is about creating ‘ready now’ leaders. In theory, a good leader will be planning for their successor on the day they enter their new position.
A clear succession planning process also demonstrates to employees that the organisation is committed to their development, rather than taking the option of recruiting 'talent' from outside. Except in a position of crisis, such as a death, this should be a very manageable process.
To mitigate business risk, succession planning usually covers the most senior jobs in the organisation, identifying individuals with the potential to step into these posts as short-term or longer-term successors. Proactive development through job moves or secondments around the business can provide a ready source of future leaders. A focus on the most senior posts means that only a small proportion of the workforce would be part of the process. This makes it more manageable.
The trend in recent years for some businesses and organisations to 'remove' layers of middle management has left a potential shortage of new leaders, which should be addressed systematically if organisations are going to succeed in the future.
Succession may not be the replacement of one person with another; as leaders have developed over time, succession planning may be the opportunity to review and even split or merge roles.
All organisations need to be able to find people with the right skills to fill key positions. Traditionally, large companies ran highly structured, confidential, and top-down succession schemes aimed at finding internal successors for key posts and planning their career paths accordingly. But with growing uncertainty, increasing speed of change and flatter structures, succession planning of this sort has declined.
In a climate of enduring skills shortages and research suggesting a lack of confidence in the leadership potential within the existing workforce, interest in succession planning has revived. Yet, recent reports suggest that despite growing investment in leadership development, improvement in leader quality has stalled.
Participants in succession planning programmes may be selected either by informal methods, such as conversations with managers or by more formal techniques, such as the performance review process and assessing competencies.
Many organisations have developed frameworks for technical and generic competencies, which relate to a broad range of desired skills and behaviours. The assessment process for generic frameworks (especially for management competencies) can be a useful starting point in evaluating an individual’s past performance for a senior role. Therefore, succession plans may need to be integrated with existing competency frameworks.
However, there shouldn’t be an over-reliance on competencies as they may be too limiting and mechanistic to assess skills such as leadership. They also relate to the past and present rather than the future. When using competencies to assess ‘potential’, organisations need to be very clear and consistent on what potential means. It should link to the organisation’s values and its strategic goals.
Employees need to understand the succession process. Transparency is key in the methods used to judge potential successors and the kinds of jobs considered suitable for each individual. The previously confidential nature of the succession planning process has declined, and the advertising of senior internal jobs is now more common.
Fairness must go with openness and all candidates must be assessed objectively. Succession planning committees (under a variety of names) exist in many large organisations to review and challenge decisions and advise on improving the process.
All employees need to feel empowered to grow or they may opt-out of the succession process. With the value of inclusion and diversity now widely recognised, employers are increasingly aware that diverse talents should be properly developed.