As I hope the first two articles in this series have now made clear, succession planning is critical not just for filling immediate vacancies but for ensuring the steady progression of leaders through the organisational hierarchy. In this third article of the series, I focus on evaluating leadership potential beyond the obvious, with a particular emphasis on the skills and attributes that enable managers to ascend to more senior roles. While technical competence and a history of achievements remains important, true leadership readiness is often demonstrated through subtler qualities like strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and the ability to lead through complex challenges. Essentially, keeping your head 'while all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you'.
Consider the scenario of a department head who has excelled in delivering operational success but now faces the demands of a broader, organisation-wide leadership role. Their ability to transition from tactical problem-solving to strategic decision-making is crucial, but not always evident through performance metrics alone. Conversely, a mid-level manager may demonstrate these qualities in team meetings, showing the foresight and interpersonal skills needed to inspire cross-functional collaboration. By using traditional methods like psychometric testing and situational judgment exercises, organisations can better evaluate who among their current leaders possesses the capacity for upward mobility.
In this article I explore some of the practical strategies for assessing leadership potential within existing staff and management ranks, ensuring a robust pipeline for all levels from junior managers to executive roles. Succession planning, at its best, is about bridging the present and the future—balancing immediate needs with the preparation of leaders for challenges yet unknown.
Evaluating Leadership Beyond the Obvious
Leadership potential is often more about what lies beneath the surface than what is immediately visible. The temptation to focus on past achievements or an assertive demeanour can lead organisations to overlook subtler, more essential qualities. True leadership is revealed in the capacity to reflect deeply, empathise genuinely, and adapt to shifting circumstances.
Leadership is about deliberating and acting wisely for the collective good, and leaders must be able to balance their technical expertise with moral insight, ensuring that decisions resonate not just in the boardroom but across the organisation. While people are at the heart of this process, taking an all too common people first stance and conceptualising the situation as getting the right people in the right roles is in many ways too narrow an approach
For example, "the CFO has left, we need to put a person in the CFO role". A better approach is to understand the outcomes that need achieving and then work out the most effective way to accomplish the results required. Once reframed in this way, succession planning becomes about ensuring that the people who are being canvassed to achieve the results are more than resumes. That is to say someone who has done this job before. Instead, leadership evaluation should encompass cognitive abilities, emotional intelligence, and motivational drivers, because technical skills alone in modern organisations are insufficient.