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O P I N I O N
Testing leadership
I t would be nice if leadership transition was a refined science with its own set of rules that produced expected results. Figuring out who’s going to take over and what that looks like is more like trial and error: You just need to try it to know if it’s going to work. People who look like good candidates don’t always work out. Before you pass the torch, you need to make sure that your next generation of leaders is up to the task.
you can weed out those who will chose a different path. Succession planning is always battling time. It takes a long time for people to really understand how to operate the business. If you wait too long, you could find yourself back at the beginning of the process and delaying your scheduled exit date. “Knowing the potential of your staff will help you understand how far you can develop them and where they fit in the organization. It also helps you identify emerging leaders before they are faced with tasks beyond their nature.”
Leo MacLeod
Here are typical scenarios I’ve run into with strategies to help you identify problems sooner than later: ❚ ❚ The eye-opener. Being an owner looks like fun until you start walking around in the owner’s shoes, sitting in tedious meetings talking about insurance, budgets or how to let someone go without getting sued; working on weekends; dealing with staff who are necessary but who always present problems; listening to two managers arguing over which software system to use and why, ad nauseam; looking at your line of credit to make payroll again because a project is delayed or a client is stalling on payment. I’ve seen promising stars take stock of the harsh realities of ownership and back away. No thanks, who needs that? This is especially true of a younger generation that values balance in their lives. The sooner you can expose emerging leaders to the unglamorous hard work of ownership, the sooner
See LEO MACLEOD, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER January 13, 2020, ISSUE 1327
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