Subscribe to the Three Star Leadership Blog

The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check Wally's Three Star Leadership Letter

Find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.

Find out more about Wally's coaching services.

Succession planning has been in the news lately. Last week John Soat at Information Week authored an article titled: "Who Will Be Your Next CIO: An Insider or an Outsider?" Here's the core of his article.

"This pivotal decision boils down to promoting from within or hiring an outsider, and that decision has everything to do with finding the most qualified person for the job. An increasing number of companies are going outside for their CIOs, and one reason may be because they don't have qualified internal candidates lined up. According to a recent survey by CDW, a computer equipment reseller, only 38% of 1,000 or so respondents--both CIOs and corporate managers--say their organizations have formal CIO succession plans."

Then, this morning I found an article by Jordan Chong at news.com.au titled: "Family businesses lack succession plans." Here's quote from that article.

"The Family Business Survey from KPMG, Family Business Australia and Deakin University found an "alarming'' 83 per cent of businesses did not know how they were going to appoint their next chief executive. This was despite the survey finding 34 per cent of chief executives were likely to step down within the next five years."

So for big companies and small and in at least two countries, lack of succession planning is an issue. But both these articles and most articles on this subject miss an important point: succession planning isn't just for the CEO job. It even goes beyond succession to the C-suite.

You should know who's next in line and have more than one candidate for every leadership job in your organization. Otherwise a leader leaving or getting sick or dying means a crisis and it's hard to think well in a crisis.

This is one of those "simple but not easy" recommendations. To make it work you need to have a rigorous review process for all your leaders and potential leaders. You should be thinking about developmental assignments to help leaders pick up competencies and relationships they'll need further down the road.

That all takes time and energy. But it's way better than throwing up your hands when a key leader heads out the door and then convening a task force to figure out what to do next.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.