What to Ask the Person in the Mirror: Critical Questions for Becoming a More Effective Leader and Reaching Your Potential by Kaplan Robert Steven

Author:Kaplan, Robert Steven [Kaplan, Robert Steven]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Published: 2011-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

Skating into the Future

Wayne Gretzky, perhaps the greatest hockey player of all time, has been widely quoted as saying that his challenge was not to skate to where the puck was, but instead, to anticipate where the puck was going to be, and skate to that point. In this same way, leaders need to build their organizations to compete in a dynamic marketplace. They need to anticipate where the world is going.

Superb leaders know that, no matter how talented they are, they can’t do this alone. They know they need to assemble a diverse group of talented people, develop those people in a dynamic manner that fits their skills and aspirations, and put them in key positions so they can contribute to the organization. I strongly believe that the earlier in their career young leaders develop this mind-set, the more successful they are likely to become.

Succession planning is a critical part of the process of identifying and then developing critical talent. Strong companies develop firm-wide succession-planning processes that help executives at all levels learn how to effectively identify and nurture key talent. This is particularly useful to newly minted managers, who might be unaccustomed to identifying and developing talent as well as working through others.

Using succession-planning processes, business unit leaders can thoughtfully delegate key responsibilities to these identified emerging executives, so that the business unit and the organization can build a cadre of capable leaders. Talent pool development and thoughtful delegation have the added benefit of freeing leaders to allocate their time to the most critical challenges facing the business.

As discussed in this chapter, many executives agree with the need to delegate but often need convincing regarding succession planning. I hope this chapter helps convince you of the direct connection between these two activities. It will be more difficult to achieve your vision and key priorities—and to reserve the bandwidth you need to perform the other tasks that you must own—without having first built a competence in this vital area.

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