How to Identify Potential and Create Successful Succession Plans
A wave of changing leaders is on the horizon. With more individuals moving towards retirement, succession planning and identifying future-ready leaders will become increasingly critical in the next five years. In fact, according to the United States Census Bureau’s 2020 report, Demographic Turning Points for the United States, the year 2030 marks a change for the United States where one in every five Americans is projected to be of retirement age[1]. What will this mean for your organization and its leadership?
Recent research from DDI shows that this is a challenge for organizations in an increasingly complex business environment. In DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2025, 61% of respondents cite identifying and developing future talent as crucial, yet only 32% have had relevant development in this area in order to do so[2]. With the growing need to spot talent, one way for organizations to approach this is with a streamlined view of leadership potential.
Creating a snapshot of future-readiness can help identify potential.
Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback in their book, Being the Boss, say that “A clear sense of the future – where you, your group, and your organization are trying to go – is the framework for virtually all you do as a manager.” The opportunity that we see is that the big idea of thinking about the future can become so broad that it becomes overwhelming for leaders to think about, causing it to slip down the to-do list behind other priorities. Additionally, organizations can be tempted to create broad lists of requirements to identify just the right qualities needed by leaders in the future, limiting the ease of dynamically tracking employee potential, leading to some people being overlooked or missing opportunities for growth assignments.
Instead, we would suggest that leaders simplify the process and start by creating a simple and memorable future-ready snapshot, just three elements to keep top of mind as they collaborate with their team members throughout the day.
Every organization has unique needs and can decide on which three qualities are most important for them. We suggest these three as indicators of a future-ready leader: trust and talent, strategic mindset, and organizational influence.
Trust and talent, strategic mindset, and influence signal a future-ready leader
The first element in assessing future readiness is trust and talent. Trust is your sense of how capable the individual is to deliver results in the part of the organization that they are responsible for, and talent is their ability to bring forward the potential of the team members who report to them. Trust and talent form a super category to quickly bring the potential of an individual employee into focus – if they are trusted to deliver results for the organization and develop the careers of the people who report to them – you have a really talented person and strong candidate for increased responsibility.
Having a strategic mindset is the second element. The evidence of a strategic mindset is that you see that a team member’s behavior and mindset reflect that they have done the work to internalize the organization’s strategy. An individual who is ready for increased responsibility looks beyond strategy execution. Future-ready leaders often function as catalysts for strategy. They see what the team and organization are capable of and make observations, share insights, and offer suggestions, stretching mindsets and perspectives of others in the organization.
The third element is organizational influence that reflects strong relationships. An individual who is ready for additional responsibility will need the support of their colleagues and peers to get things done. Looking at organizational influence under the lens of future-readiness can give you a sense of how efficiently an individual will be able to collaborate, seek out information and support, and develop their perspective and problem-solving as future challenges arise.
Taken together, these three indicators – trust and talent, strategic mindset, and organizational influence – create a snapshot of future-readiness that leaders can remember and reflect on as they interact with team members throughout their day. This will create a working point of view on what’s needed for the different individuals on their team to grow professionally and help to identify those who are ready to take the next step in their leadership journey. Finally, we are here to help if you would like to enable more leaders in your organization to spot future-ready talent, ask us about our Leading Leaders and HeadPoint programs.
[1] U.S. Census Bureau. (2020). Demographic Turning Points for the United States: Population Projections for 2020 to 2060. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.html
[2] Development Dimensions International. (2025). Global Leadership Forecast 2025. https://www.ddiworld.com/research/global-leadership-forecast-2025
Jennifer Kern is Director of Learning Innovation and Leadership Product Design at Lake Forest Center for Leadership. She has been with the Lake Forest team since 2017, and her background includes developing learning strategy, instructional design, instructional technology, sales training, facilitation, and project management.