Succession Planning based on Leadership Deliverables

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Succession Planning is often easier to agree upon than to implement

Nothing is easier than recognizing the need for a well designed, smooth leadership succession program. Identifying and grooming specific people to take over when a manager moves on in the organisation or leaves is a way to ensure consistency and organisational resilience. But just filling gaps isn’t everything to strive for.

Leadership succession is leadership development

A succession planning program needs to be an integral element of the organisation’s leadership development efforts. For this reason, LEADERSHIP DELIVERABLES must be the primary standard in succession planning.

Why focus on Leadership Deliverables?

These are the most important benefits:

• The concept is an important innovation compared to recent years, where the training and development industry has been almost entirely centered on personalities and/or competencies
• In doing so, Leadership Deliverables provides a definition and a measure of the outcomes of the leader’s personality, competencies and actions.

Avoid the self-replication pitfall

Another benefit of applying a DELIVERABLES perspective is that it reduces the risk of falling into the self-replication pitfall.

There are two tricky brain functions that make us prone to self-replicate:

• One is our unconscious emotional preference for people who resemble – if not ourselves, then at least people appear familiar to us
• The other is the brain’s tendency to jump to conclusions[1]

If the organisation doesn’t make use of Leadership Deliverables in the succession program the risk of self-replication is always present.

Ever so often these two brain dynamics have lured us away from a more systematic approach that would have led to more diversity and better leaders.

[1] Ref. Daniel Kahnemann’s ”System 1” thinking

The only model that focuses on Leadership Deliverables

Direct Leadership® is the only model that defines and sets a generic, internationally tested standard for Leadership Deliverables 

• With Direct Leadership® the succession and grooming criteria may include the Leadership Deliverables of the candidates.
• An online training program allows for quick-access to the model.
• Certified trainers worldwide provide local support.
• The Direct Leadership® Mastery Test gives opportunity to discuss the leader’s own perception with that of his/her stakeholders. 
  
  

Learn more about Direct Leadership® - The Essential Leadership Deliverables here.