Leadership Competencies for Succession Planning

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A friend of mine manages asset risk for one of the world’s largest corporate pension funds.  Under his skilled leadership, the fund grew in value last year.  In addition to understanding the difference between real investments and bubble investments he never loses sight of the fact he’s managing the retirement funds of real people.  He’s also the guy who runs back to the restaurant to grab the jacket you forgot on the back of your chair.

His humility and good will toward others, combined with the fact he can calculate a balance sheet to a gnat’s eyebrow in his head, makes him leadership material in my book.

He was recently promoted to the executive management team after more than a decade of jumping through rigorous succession management hoops.

Let me say up front that the succession management program at his company isn’t perfect.  It’s complex and convoluted.  Succession candidates are subjected to the political whims and reorganizations of the executive team.  Some worthy people get passed over, others benefit from favoritism.

Like anywhere.

Nevertheless, if the primary mission of succession planning is to put ready, qualified people into leadership roles his company is doing something right.  And what they are doing right lies less in the mechanics of their succession planning process and more in the overarching purpose behind the process, which is to identify and develop leadership candidates with the following competencies:

1. Social competence: High potentials are identified based on multiple criteria, including skills, performance and social competence.  For example, people who regularly go to lunch with colleagues from other teams get points for being more ‘connected’ than people who stick to themselves or their own group.
2. Political competence: In addition to ‘passive’ succession planning, i.e., identifying people from above based on performance, high potentials are expected to find ways to get noticed.  For example, a true high potential finds a way to get on a high profile project rather than passively waiting for someone to ‘discover’ them.  They are also expected to manage expectations between their reporting and matrix managers.
3. Functional competence: Succession candidates don’t make it to the top just by socializing and getting on high profile projects, they also have to perform consistently high quality work over a long period of time in multiple roles.
4. Potential competence: When this company does talent mining for a high profile project or role, they aren’t just looking for who could do the job today.  They’re also looking for people who can rise to the occasion and succeed despite lack of experience.
5. Leadership competence: It’s not uncommon to give people new responsibilities without a promotion to see if they sink or swim before making the new role official.  This may sound unfair, but there’s something to be said for making someone demonstrate leadership skills before formalizing their leadership role.
6. Global competence: Succession candidates typically either manage a global team and/or work abroad as one of the rungs on the succession ladder.  Of course, since it’s a global company, the higher you go the more likely you are to lead a global team but your ability to think and manage globally is closely examined.
7. Teamwork competence: Internal mobility is common so to keep the best people managers have to develop and recognize them.  And high potentials know the best way to get recognized is to make their colleagues and managers look good.

The result: People who connect with others.  People who know how to shine.  People who do great work and are able to meet new challenges.  People who have proven they can lead global teams.  And people who understand success isn’t a zero sum game.

In other words, great leaders.