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It starts with a calendar invite: “Quick sync — urgent.”
Your Vice President is leaving. You weren’t expecting it. There’s no backup. No development path. No plan.
Suddenly, timelines slip, direct reports scatter, and HR scrambles to find someone or anyone who can hold the wheel. Yet leadership isn’t plug and play, and the ripple effects spread quickly.
Too many organizations are caught in this cycle. Leadership succession is often deprioritized in favor of short-term tasks. But when left unaddressed, it can jeopardize operations, culture, and future growth in ways that are difficult to recover from.
Let’s explore why a strong succession strategy matters and what happens when it’s missing.
Leadership transitions are inevitable, whether through retirement, resignation, promotion, or unexpected health or personal changes. The issue isn’t that leaders leave; it’s that most organizations aren’t prepared for it. A study from SHRM found that 40% of HR professionals struggle to find qualified leadership candidates in time. That’s not a hiring issue; it is a gap in planning.
Each day a key leadership role remains vacant, projects stall, morale dips, and business continuity weakens. Filling the position reactively with someone unprepared only compounds the risk.
Organizations that lack succession planning are more likely to:
A strong succession plan changes that dynamic. It builds the foundation for agility, resilience, and forward momentum.
The departure of a seasoned leader is rarely about a title. It’s about the years of decisions, nuances, and historical insight that go with them.
Harvard Business Review research shows organizations can lose up to 20% of productivity after a leadership exit. That loss stems not only from the leader’s absence, but from the disruption it causes in decision-making, context, and confidence across the team.
One example of this challenge in action comes from Grace, a global specialty chemicals company that faced a 13% retirement cliff in its commercial organization. With over 40 roles to backfill and no formal knowledge transfer system in place, Grace partnered with TTA to create a standardized curriculum that preserved critical expertise and accelerated onboarding. The resulting initiative, Project Spark, reduced time-to-proficiency by six months and earned a Brandon Hall Gold Award.
Read the full case study to see how Grace transformed its succession strategy and reduced time-to-proficiency by six months.
What disappears without planning:
Without knowledge capture strategies such as shadowing, storytelling, or mentorship, organizations are left to rebuild institutional memory from scratch.
Leadership transitions ripple far beyond the C-suite. When the process feels rushed or unclear, anxiety spreads throughout the organization: employees start wondering who is at the helm, trust in leadership falters, and high performers may quietly leave. Even internal promotions can backfire if the successor is unprepared or misaligned with the team’s needs.
The ripple effects include:
Even subtle changes, like delays in budget approvals or shifts in communication style, can build over time and erode trust. A well-planned succession strategy brings clarity and consistency, helping preserve culture through times of transition.
Succession planning plays a vital role in both continuity and inclusion. It’s one of the most effective ways to advance diversity goals and build a more representative leadership bench.
Without intentional development pathways, underrepresented employees are often overlooked for leadership roles. Under pressure, organizations tend to favor familiar candidates instead of fresh perspectives.
A strong succession strategy can:
Organizations committed to inclusive leadership need a transparent, structured approach to succession that reflects those values in practice.
Preparing future leaders is a cross-functional effort, with L&D playing a leading role in aligning development with business needs.
L&D brings a critical perspective by connecting future role requirements with current talent development. This includes:
When development is integrated with strategy, leadership transitions become a natural progression rather than a disruptive event.
Succession planning is often misunderstood as being limited to the C-suite, yet the most effective organizations apply it at multiple levels.
Think beyond the CEO. Ask:
When these roles change without preparation, the impact is felt widely.
Good succession planning maps out risks not just by hierarchy, but by influence, expertise, and operational impact.
What Does a Strong Succession Plan Look Like?
An effective succession strategy is structured, but not rigid. It’s based on capability, readiness, and strategic foresight. It should include:
These elements work together as an active system that evolves with the organization and supports leadership continuity at every level.
If You’re Starting from Zero
Succession planning can feel like a big lift, especially if you haven’t started yet. But you don’t need to solve everything at once. Here are some effective ways to start.
Partnering with L&D early in the process can accelerate these steps and build structure around succession efforts. Even early actions create momentum and signal that leadership readiness is a priority, not an afterthought.
Succession planning rarely feels urgent. That changes the moment it becomes the only thing that matters.
Every organization will face leadership transitions. The question is whether those moments lead to disruption or continuity.
Start now and build with intention. A thoughtful succession plan turns change into an advantage rather than a setback.
Key takeaway: Strong leadership doesn’t emerge by chance. It’s the result of strategic planning, clear development paths, and early preparation. Succession planning gives your future leaders the foundation they need to succeed and keeps your organization focused and resilient through change.
Want to future-proof your leadership pipeline? Explore our award-winning leadership development solutions and see how TTA helps organizations build their next generation of leaders.
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