The Internal Successor’s Dilemma

Internal succession candidates have an immediate edge to external candidates because they already understand the organization’s culture and politics and have established relationships with the key individuals and senior managers. 

While this foothold secures their position, to truly succeed internal succession candidates must act quickly and work on three areas to gain leverage in their new position – relationships, expectations and key coalition.

RECASTING RELATIONSHIPS

They must recast their relationships within the organization as they assume the critical position and become the boss of former co-workers. Colleagues who were passed over for the successor’s job can often present the most difficult; they may resist the new leader’s direction more than they would resist directives from someone brought in from the outside.

MODIFYING EXPECTATIONS

The organization, both top management and former peers, know the internal successor as he or she was. As such, they must modify people’s expectations of them. The successor must introduce new ways of operating the business, hold people to higher standards, and spend time with new stakeholders. In this manner, everyone will start seeing the successor’s new being. 

CREATING KEY COALITIONS

Internal successors must create a new alliance within their organization. By moving people up from within or by bringing in new talent from the outside, the successor will be able to assert his or her new position. Strategic alliances will also allow the successor to scale quickly, build innovative solutions, and pool valuable expertise and resources.

Just because a successor comes from within the organization, doesn’t mean he or she will have an easy time. True, organization dynamics and politics will be familiar, but people find comfort in familiarity, and the changes inherent in assuming a new role can be challenging. Planning ahead to leverage the new assignment will help the internal successor secure early wins.