How is your succession plan looking?

Deloitte's recent survey on leadership within organisations throws up some important, and what should be unnerving, results for many readers. With a large sample size it shows that almost half of all organisations surveyed lacked a strong programme to develop tomorrows leaders. I find it interesting that when succession planning is so vital that it is often given to an L&D function to resolve.

One of the questions that Deloitte asked was regarding 'Global skills' programmes and 'Experiential role based programmes'. You can make these work within one country too but one key ingredient, is that the organisation has mapped out where they are going in sufficient detail so that the strategy is well understood. Leaders must thence able to demonstrate the key Values in how they drive the business towards its desired goal. 

Growing your own leaders is not rocket science but it does require a degree of focus from existing leadership teams in coaching and mentoring their followers to develop into the strong team they want to create in the future. And you won't get that from a book. Programmes that work require a commitment from the existing leaders in terms of time, to engage with tomorrows leaders (and sometimes in different ways - especially for millennials) and such constant engagement, little and often, provides a great platform to build the future team.