Succession Planning
Succession is one of those words that sounds distant until it’s suddenly urgent. Tomorrow’s leaders are depending on you…today.
I’ve watched it happen in boardrooms and small offices alike. A key leader leaves, and everyone scrambles. Files are missing. Decisions stall. Momentum fades. The team looks around and realizes there’s no clear next step. The truth is, most organizations don’t fail because of market shifts. They fail because they didn’t prepare for who comes next.
According to Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends, more than 60% of organizations say they don’t have strong leadership pipelines. Meanwhile, about 10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day in the United States. By 2030, every Boomer will be of retirement age. That’s not just a demographic fact…it’s a leadership handoff of historic scale.
Yet I’ve met many companies that view succession planning as a one-time project. It’s not. It’s a mindset. It’s the daily work of developing people to lead before you need them to.
Some of the best-run organizations in the world make leadership development part of their DNA. Larges organizations may have more formal plans, but smaller organizations can do the same by thinking intentionally about growth.
Developing talent takes patience, and patience rarely shows up on quarterly reports. That’s why it requires conviction. Leadership development is an investment in the future—one that pays off in retention, culture, and continuity.
Who are you developing?
When I speak with new managers, I often ask, “Who are you developing to take your place?” The answers are often hesitant. But the most confident leaders answer easily. They know succession isn’t a threat to their role; it’s proof they’ve done it well.
Research from McKinsey shows that organizations with formal leadership development programs are 2.4 times more likely to hit performance goals. That’s not coincidence. When people see growth ahead, they stay engaged. When they don’t, they leave.
Still, developing future leaders looks different now. Younger generations expect more coaching, purpose, and flexibility. They want to see leadership modeled, not just taught. A growing number of companies use internal “micro-mentorships” – short, focused learning sprints between employees two or three levels apart. It’s a simple, low-cost way to keep knowledge flowing both ways.
Lead in the Small Moments
Even the best leaders can forget that development doesn’t happen in big moments. It happens in small ones…when you delegate, when you listen, when you let someone try and fail safely. Every time you trust someone with responsibility, you give them a chance to grow into the kind of leader you’d want to follow.
But here’s what makes this challenging: those small moments often feel inconvenient. It’s faster to do the task yourself than to teach someone else. It’s easier to give answers than to ask questions that help people think through problems. It requires patience when deadlines loom and courage when the stakes feel high. Yet these seemingly insignificant interactions compound over time, creating a culture where people evolve.
The late Bill Walsh, the legendary 49ers coach, used to say that the score takes care of itself when you focus on teaching fundamentals. The same applies to leadership. Focus on building people, and the future takes care of itself.
Walsh understood something profound: excellence isn’t achieved through occasional grand gestures, but through relentless attention to the basics. He didn’t just coach football plays; he coached decision-making, composure under pressure, and the mental discipline required to execute when it mattered most. His players learned to think like coaches themselves. This is why so many of his assistants and players went on to become successful leaders in their own right.
The parallel to organizational leadership is striking. When we focus obsessively on developing our people’s fundamental capabilities—their ability to think critically, communicate clearly, navigate ambiguity, and recover from setbacks—we’re not just improving their current performance. We’re building their capacity to handle whatever challenges the future holds.
The most sustainable organizations aren’t built around individual brilliance; they’re built around systems that consistently develop brilliant individuals. They create environments where leadership development isn’t dependent on having an exceptional boss or being in the right place at the right time. It’s embedded in how they operate, how they structure projects, how they conduct meetings, and how they define success.
This requires a fundamental shift in how we think about our role as leaders. Instead of seeing ourselves primarily as drivers of results, we need to see ourselves as developers of people who drive results. The distinction matters because it changes how we spend our time, what we measure, and what we celebrate.
If you’d like to hear more stories and insights on building strong leadership pipelines, listen to my Aim Higher episode on Building Succession in a Changing World.
We explore how the best leaders create systems that outlast their tenure, ensuring that their impact continues long after they’ve moved on. Because ultimately, the true measure of leadership isn’t just what you accomplish—it’s what continues to be accomplished because of how you developed others.
Listen to Aim Higher here.
Photo Credit: Scott May
