Exiting with dignity: a guide to CEO succession
Succession is not only an issue for American Presidents like Joe Biden. CEOs also must stop sooner or later. All too often, we tend to stay too long in our positions of power. Why? Because we are delusional with ourselves. We don’t know what else to do. We get a bit too comfortable and used to the status and power of the position. We fall victim to inertia. It’s what we’ve always done and where we focused on for the last 30-40 years. Not strange that it’s complicated to let that go and move on. Perhaps it's more psychological than we'd like to admit to ourselves. After all, we’re only human.
It’s almost impossible to look at ourselves objectively. And when people have the guts to try to tell us something, we easily push their observations away as ‘untrue’. Instead, we let our emotions overwhelm us. We believe that our feelings are more important than the interests of the company. We fail to leave our ego at the door.
The result is that many organizations go through chaotic succession processes. And when it happens, they’re missing out on opportunities to create value for their stakeholders. It’s shallow and short-term thinking. In some of the worst cases of succession gone wrong, it even leads to the collapse of a business. Sometimes even bankruptcy.
How to navigate this?
- Invest in your self-awareness. Continue to invite people actively to give you feedback. This should never stop.
- Specifically for your succession: reach out to five to ten people that you trust. People with different or, even better, no interest in your succession. People from your private life and in your professional circles. Ask them: when is it time for me to retire? Do you think I am past my peak? What do you advise me to do? Only ask questions for clarification and wrap up by saying: thank you!
- Talk to someone trusted who is outside your business. Open yourself up and allow yourself to receive some support. This is one of those situations where assistance can make a huge difference. Allow yourself to receive. Don’t try to solve everything yourself; it’s not in your self-interest.
- Start very early to plan for your own succession. This can be as soon as you accept your position as CEO. A healthy succession process can easily take five to seven years.
- Develop a pipeline of potential successors. Ideally three. Manageable and spreading the risks. Start to pull them closer and invest in their development.
- Inspire yourself and talk to people that have already taken this step. Ask them about their experiences. See what inspires you from their stories and decide what might work for you too.
- If you’ve dedicated your life to your work and less so to your private and family life, have no regrets. You cannot change the past anyway. What you can do is place different priorities for the time to come and start your next chapter today!
- And to finish with a cliché: enjoy the journey! Nobody ever survived life. The graveyard is full of people who couldn’t be missed. But life and business goes on, with and without us. The sooner we make peace with this, the better it is for ourselves and for our environment.
Let people remember what you have meant for the business. Try to identify your peak and where you are today. Leave a positive legacy. Stop. Move on. Make peace with your emotions and create the roadmap for the next phase of your life.
Hope this inspires.
When you’re ready to have a 100% confidential conversation about succession, please reach out to us via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Paul P.J. Donkers is a sought-after global business coach and management consultant. More about his work and projects can be found via www.tencompany.org and via www.ikigaicoachinginstitute.com
Paul and his partners work since decades with leaders to assist them create more value. If you want to have a confidential conversation, just reach out to us via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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