Like presidential transition, smooth succession management is vital
Barack Obama's successful campaign for the nation's top job featured relentless criticism of incumbent George W. Bush. That did not stop Bush from immediately congratulating the president-elect and pledging a smooth transition.
It is a good lesson for all managers. Leadership is about the future - ensuring the ongoing success and viability of an entity. Executives who create an environment where new chiefs can emerge and flourish are carrying out one of the fundamental responsibilities of leadership.
So important is succession management to the ongoing survival of the nation that the U.S. Constitution provides a detailed Presidential line of succession - first the Vice President, then the Speaker of the House, President pro tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State, etc.
The Founding Fathers "understood that a vacuum in leadership could be disastrous," said Larry Olmstead, president of Leading Edge Associates, which consults on organizational change issues. "And frankly, the same is true of corporations and organizations."
Like the United States, any established corporation, nonprofit organization, family enterprise, or governmental entity should take an ongoing, systematic look at succession - identifying new leaders, and deciding how to manage transitions should they occur.
"Ideally, succession management plays out over time and is not abrupt," Olmstead said. "There is clarity about the reasons for the transition, as well as transparency in the process. And ideally, the selection of the new players happens before the old players are gone."
According to Robert M. Fulmer, a visiting professor at the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University, best-practices organizations:
- Link succession planning to overall business strategy;
- Use a formal, ongoing process to identify future leaders.
- Emphasize the importance of individualized leadership development plans for each employee. Those plans include coaching, activities and work assignments.
"Succession management is a continuous annual process," Fulmer wrote. "It requires an ongoing commitment of top executives, HR staff, and succession management specialists."
Once a transition takes place, Olmstead said, "There should be an opportunity for the new players to get thoroughly debriefed and oriented by the outgoing players in the organization. There should be an opportunity for important principals in the organization and the entire organization to get to know and meet the new critical key players. And there should be communication to the external world: to customers, vendors, and the industry at-large about what is taking place in the organization and what the benefits are for the organization and for the constituencies through this transition."
With the world watching for cues as to how President-elect Obama will handle his responsibilities, his transition team communicates daily through the transition team's Web site, change.gov, on staff appointments. Appointees' resumes are posted online.
By many accounts, the outgoing president also is doing his part to ensure a smooth transition. In the life of any organization, transitions in leadership could come after similar acrimony - through mergers, hostile takeovers, or a sudden change in board leadership. Ensuring a smooth handover of power is in the interest of outgoing leaders.
"Part of your legacy is going to be around how successful the organization is after you leave it," Olmstead said. "And so obviously, a smooth transition is part of that."