Thoughts on Leadership: Cultivating Tomorrow’s Leaders

By Gino Blefari

This week, my routine didn’t take me far; I stayed home to tackle the usual Monday lineup of WIG calls. Today, marking the start of August, we have about 21 weeks left in 2024. It’s this part of the year when I dive into business planning and kick off our regular succession planning process. I’m excited to share what this entails.

A succession meeting, straightforward as it may sound, is a vital opportunity for any CEO to strategize their potential succession should they decide to step down or if unforeseen circumstances arise. As Benjamin Franklin wisely put it, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

Read more: Thoughts on Leadership: Cultivating Tomorrow’s Leaders

Succession planning isn’t merely about choosing a successor; it’s about cultivating potential leaders long before there’s an empty seat at the top. Future leaders need to be identified, nurtured, and multiplied to secure the organization’s continuity and success.

In “The Leader’s Greatest Return,” John C. Maxwell outlines a ten-step method for fostering a new generation of leaders within your organization. Here’s how it goes:

1. Identify: The first step is recognizing potential leaders within your team. Look closely at each member and evaluate their leadership potential.
2. Attract: To draw in strong leaders, maintain openness and transparency. Let potential leaders know there is a place for them at the top if they stay focused, productive, and dedicated.
3. Understand: Developing a deep connection with your team members is crucial. I use a set of 18 questions to better understand them, but whatever your approach, aim to build trust and respect.
4. Motivate: True motivation is self-generated. If you inspire your team to motivate themselves, they’ll sustain their passion far longer than if you’re the sole source of their motivation.
5. Equip: Preparing leaders means providing them with a clear roadmap to success. This could be through systems of accountability or goal-setting frameworks.
6. Empower: Once leaders are ready, step back. Avoid micromanagement. Empowered leaders are more effective and drive better results.
7. Position: A team of synchronized leaders, much like the crew in Daniel James Brown’s “The Boys in the Boat,” achieves more together.
8. Mentor: Having benefited from many mentors myself, I understand the value of passing on knowledge and experience to groom future leaders.
9. Reproduce: Good leadership practices should be replicable. Ensuring that your leaders can teach others guarantees a sustainable leadership pipeline.
10. Compound: According to the Pareto principle, about 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes. In leadership, fostering key leaders is that critical 20% that significantly impacts growth.

So, what’s the message? The measure of a leader’s success is how well they can forge new leaders. It’s not just the best way—it’s the only way to guarantee a future that is both successful and bright.