Life at the top of the corporate ladder is getting increasingly competitive, thanks to the constant changes in trends and the churn in technologies. Last year alone, more than a sixth of the CEOs in the world’s 2,500 largest companies quit, as per PwC’s Strategy and CEO Success Study. The average tenure of a CEO too has been drastically reduced to five years only now. Sometimes, succession doesn’t work out, but in others they do, as happened with Apple post Steve Jobs, when Tim Cook took on the top job. At GE, the succession proved to be a failure after Jeffrey Immelt was succeeded by John Flannery. Companies must thus, build formal management training sessions, primarily focused on succession planning at each stage, but with special focus on the very top. Potential successors must try and build their own brand. They need to set the agenda, by drafting the corporate strategy, at their level at least. The right pace has to be dictated to lead to change. The board needs to work with such potential successors as collaborative partners. Critically, the person has to leverage the existing working culture, to suit towards his/ her needs.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Succeeding-the-long-serving-legend-in-the-corner-office?gko=90171

Uploaded Date:08 June 2019