“Robin, in our next coaching session, I want to talk about succession planning. I’ve got to figure out who can lead this company in the future. Right now I’m a single point of failure for my role as the CEO,” Mark said as he contemplated his organization’s future leadership.

This Week’s Edition

Many leaders are working hard to keep the train on track and grow the business. They aren’t actively planning succession… not because they aren’t thinking about it.

Clarify Your Thinking

Mark is not alone. Many leaders in both private organizations and publicly traded companies are questioning who the next leader of the organization might be. 

Chevron is contemplating extending its mandatory retirement age to allow its current CEO to extend his reign. Disney just brought back its iconic leader, Bob Iger, after the CEO who succeeded him failed miserably.  For the past decade, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with leaders related to succession planning. What I’ve found is that without a clear and visible pipeline of future leaders, doubt begins to permeate throughout an organization. That leadership doubt comes with a stiff price:

• Wall Street analysts downgrade their outlook of the company as they question the future stability of the organization.

• If a board of directors does not believe any of the current C-Suite leaders are qualified to be CEO they will question those leader’s current abilities even though they are fully qualified for their present role. 

• When employees sense no one is capable of stepping in if the CEO leaves, they worry about their long-term security at the company. 

The lack of a clear successor also weighs heavily on the current CEO, who knows that if something happens to them the company may be in peril. All their hard work to this point could vanish without a leader who is trained to take the helm. 

Old Thinking: I know I need to think about a successor, but I just don’t have time. I don’t know how to go about it. Plus, I’m not ready to leave. I’ll just hope someone materializes as the eventual leader. 

New Thinking: Leadership training is important regardless of whether we are currently focused on “succession” planning or not. I want our organization to be full of leaders who are confidently leading their functional area. It’s good for business AND it allows us over time to assess who may be fit for future leadership roles.

Thoughts Lead to Actions

80% of Fortune 500 companies are run by a Baby Boomer CEO who’s average age is 67 years old – 7 years older than the historic average. Gen X leaders have had between 0 and 1 promotions over the past 5 years.

Thus, 70% of top human resources professionals do not believe the next CEO is currently in the organization.

91% of Millennials aspire to be a leader, and 63% of that group claim they are not receiving the leadership training they need to be successful.

83% of organizations believe in leadership development. Only 5% actually invest in leadership development. These stats show that we have created our current challenge: we haven’t trained the leaders we need to fill the leadership positions of the future.

The future leaders are “begging” for leadership development AND the organization needs more leaders. Train the leaders you want. Train the leaders you need.

CEOs, take action. Here are three ideas:

1. Cross-train your team members by hosting training sessions. Let your current leader’s train on what they know. 

2. Bring experts into the organization for training sessions on their area of expertise.

3. Invest in leadership development ensuring that those who are trained share their knowledge with the rest of the company.

Boost Your Performance

Watch this week’s video to learn how to determine who you think might be good to invest in additional training to grow in their leadership.

What’s Your Opinion?

Who is your next leader? Share it with me at robin.pou@robinpou.com. 

If you are going to be a leader, you might as well be a good one. Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!

Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist

We live to make bad leadership extinct so forward this newsletter to others who strive to be confident leaders. 

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What is “The Confident Leader”?

During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.