Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that chaos and confusion are recurrent themes in these times. What worked before COVID may not work now. Plans that CEOs like you had for your succession may just be a pipe dream.
What can you do to get grounded as you try to rescue your succession plan? And how do you save that plan you made to develop future leaders for your firm?
You dig deeper into the dimensions of leadership.
“Above all, there’s a clear message that leaders at every level—from emerging high potentials to the C-suite—are looking for clarity in development and promotion decisions. In a chaotic environment, informal approaches aren’t working well. Rather, the need for deeper leadership strategy must come from the top as CEOs, CHROs and their boards work together to strengthen the backbone of their workforce: their leaders,” concludes the CEO Leadership Report 2021, published by Development Dimensions International, Inc.
Only one in three CEOs (34%) consider their organization’s frontline leadership quality “very good” or “excellent,” according to the CEO report. Furthermore, CEOs rate only 38% of mid-level leadership quality highly, with a slightly higher view of the senior team at 58%.
The report also found that “Developing future talent is an imperative for CEOs. Top executives expressed concern about the quality of frontline and mid-level leadership quality. However, leadership development approaches are often piecemeal, with increasing emphasis on individuals to pursue their own development rather than offering organizational support.”
What’s a CEO to do? Dig in. Here are critical areas for you to address.
(I apologize to Jim Collins for borrowing his “Good to Great” bus metaphor. It’s just so dang good and everyone knows it.)
Do you have the right people on the bus? When you look around, do you see individuals who are aching to be leaders? Or do you see individuals who are just calling it in or waiting to retire? It is hard to make progress when you are saddled with dead weight.
Figuring out who should be on your bus is tough. It’s emotional. It’s painful. But it is what leaders do. Leaders don’t bail. Leaders finish strong.
CEO Next Steps: Figure out who should–and who shouldn’t–be on the bus.
Which seats on your bus are obsolete? Which seats aren’t required to move the bus forward? And which seats do you need to add?
It is a waste of time and resources to train NextGen leaders in skills or roles that aren’t needed. A clear leadership development plan looks at what roles are needed now and in the future.
For example, a human resources executive may need to be groomed for a role as a chief people officer. Or a company may need to augment its sales team with a chief revenue officer.
CEO Next Steps: Map today’s roles and tomorrow’s expected roles. Where are the gaps in your talent pool?
Let’s take a second to catch up. You know:
Now you want to match talents, interests, and aptitudes to get the right people in the right seats.
You wouldn’t want to take someone from your accounting group and put that person in marketing, would you? Probably not at first glance. But what if you talked to that accounting person and found out that she has been wanting to move into something with more creativity? Would you give her that opening?
In our interviews with CEOs, each one has emphasized how important it was to have conversations with people like that marketing person. It is only by having two-way conversations with your people that you will have a successful leadership succession plan.
CEO Next Steps: Talk with your people. No assumptions allowed.
©Pamela A. Scott, MentorLoft.com 2022