W Succession Planning HOW TO EFFECTIVELY PASS THE BATON OF LEADERSHIP By Karen Brown, CEO, Exponential Results When formulating a leadership succession plan, one choice looms as the most critical: inside or outside? That is, will you nurture and cultivate your most promising internal team members for future leadership roles? Or will you seek your successors from the outside, bringing in potentially fresh ideas and perspectives? There are pros and cons to each approach, as anyone who has been involved in this process knows. The truth is, a strategic blend of both internal and external approaches can be highly effective. The key to success lies in maintaining transparency throughout the process, ensuring that all stakeholders are well-informed and aligned. This approach helps prevent any surprises, regardless of whether the chosen successor(s) emerges from within the organization or is sourced externally. The need for a sound succession plan has never been more vital, given that: • Executives are doing more job-hopping. The number of companies where executives worked, including their current job, rose each decade — to 3.3 in 2021 from 2.2 in 1980, a 50% rise. More job-hopping means more executive holes to fill. • The number of years the executives worked elsewhere before joining their current company jumped by a third, Colorado Banker 20
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