Take a New Approach to Succession Planning and Leadership Development

Delivering results — and the 60-hour-a-week grind fests that doing so demanded — often sufficed for “leadership development.” Not anymore.

What’s at stake: It’s time to understand new talent and workforce realities. Organizations that fail to address succession planning and leadership development inadequacies won’t be successful over the long term — rather, they expose themselves to strategic risks.

By the numbers: Protiviti’s latest Top Risks Survey points to succession planning (as well as the ability to attract and retain top talent) as the top risk issue for organizations globally, both today and 10 years from now.

• According to a survey of 240-plus organizations conducted by the Association for Talent Development, the primary causes of shortcomings in succession planning include limited C-suite bandwidth, insufficient resources, and a lack of knowledge and expertise.

Why it matters: More boards are cognizant of the links between leadership-talent quality and valuable outcomes related to employee experience, engagement, customer experience, profitability, resilience, innovation and more.