Exploring a Person-Centred Approach to Leadership Succession Management

This research provides a detailed investigation of leadership succession management (LSM) practice within a large organisation from the perspective of the individual. LSM describes the “deliberate and systematic effort by an organisation to ensure leadership continuity in key positions, retain and develop intellectual and knowledge capital for the future and encourage individual advancement” (Rothwell 2010, p. 6). The literature demonstrates that formal approaches to LSM produce significant benefits to organisations (e.g. Ciampa & Watkins 1999; Huselid 1995; Shen & Cannella Jr. 2003). At the same time, various sources indicate that whilst 90-95% of large organisations consider LSM as important or very important, today at best 60% of them effectively manage the succession of their senior leaders (Cvijanovic et al. 2019; DDI & The Conference Board 2014; Larcker & Scott 2014). This gap, termed here the “Knowing-Doing Gap”, exists despite the fact that LSM has been recognised as important for some time (Grusky 1960; Vancil 1987). The present research addresses some key issues for the Knowing-Doing Gap to advance LSM knowledge and practice. This includes considering LSM from the perspective of the individual rather than the organisation (Cappelli 2011), considering the complexity involved in LSM (Giambatista et al. 2005) and considering the dimension of context with LSM practice (Brewer & Brewer 2010). While many scholars have written about LSM best practice, a review of the literature shows both similarities and differences in approach. The present research aggregates and builds upon these to form a comprehensive framework for LSM best practice. This will be called the LSM Framework. It also sets out contingent success factors (CSFs) that contribute to LSM outcomes. This supports more-extensive and appropriate implementation of LSM practices, which would narrow the Knowing-Doing Gap