Five Principles to Help Guide your Succession Planning
We need to rethink our succession strategies.
It’s no longer just about identifying “who’s next” – it’s about growing leaders who can handle “what’s next” – whatever that many look like. Here’s 5 principles to help guide your succession decisions:
1. Prioritize Future-Ready Skills Over Past Performance
It’s no longer about tenure or historical results. Future-readiness needs to focus on the capabilities needed for tomorrow (think digital literacy, complex problem-solving, collaboration, strategic thinking, and influence).
Tip: Shift from job-based skills to capabilities. Prepare successors based on future role requirements.
2. Make Development Continuous
Move from one-time trainings to an ecosystem of on-the-job learning. This not only reinforces your succession pipeline but accelerates readiness keeping high-potentials growing and filling bench gaps.
Tip: Your successors need ongoing growth moments (think personalized coaching, mentoring, and stretch assignments.
3. Enable Internal Mobility
High-potential talent becomes future-ready by giving them opportunities across the organization, not staying siloed. This builds org-wide thinking, increases adaptability, and expands leadership skills.
Tip: Give your People cross-functional assignments and rotations as part of a clear career pathway. Include upskilling to prepare for emerging roles.
4. Expand Leadership Skills beyond Executives
All your People need leadership skills development; it just may look different across your organization. If you do this, you’ll see better project outcomes, customer satisfaction, front-line decision making, and accountability for results. This then creates a self-perpetuating cycle widening the successor pool.
Tip: Strategically design leadership development into all talent tiers – and don’t use a “one size fits all” method.
5. Integrate Into the Employee Experience
People grow best in environments that are supportive with growth opportunities and purpose and values are clear. When high-potentials are engaged, they stay (which means your readiness accelerates!).
Tip: Help keep your hi-pos’ engaged in growing themselves (think exposure to senior leaders, coaching and mentoring, and on-the-job learning experiences).
Ultimately, organizations that prioritize future-ready succession principles not only meet the changing world head-on with a culture that adapts and navigates disruption but also creates a great “people-first” environment where employees grow and thrive.
