Developing a Succession Plan That Supports Diversity

Today’s smart companies understand that diverse leadership is far more than a mere public relations or morale boost. Executive teams with varied backgrounds, experiences and leadership styles offer critical advantages to businesses.

But these dynamic teams don’t build themselves, particularly in today’s high-turnover labor market. Diverse teams are built through intentional and strategic succession planning that identifies and develops top talent to replace key contributors who inevitably depart your company.

“Startling as it is, most organizations don’t have either a strategic or a succession plan,” says  Daniel Feiman, managing director at management and consulting firm Build It Backwards. “This is truly unfortunate and wasteful.”

Here are four tips to help your company build the diverse leadership team that’s necessary to succeed in today’s business landscape.

Take a More Holistic Approach to Diversity

Certified diversity executive and author La’Wana Harris says developing diverse leadership through effective succession planning requires organizations to move beyond lip service. “It's not enough to hire a few people of color or women without considering the entire career lifecycle,” she says. “A more holistic approach is required — one that supports changes at the individual and systemic levels across the organization.”

Harris says organizations often make the mistake of focusing too much on backfilling key positions, rather than developing a strategy to deliver a robust pipeline of diverse talent. “Don't accept the fallacy that there is ‘not enough highly qualified diverse talent,’” she says.

Harris says organizations need to ensure diversity in all teams involved in decisions for talent acquisition, talent management and leadership development. “If the organization lacks internal diversity to cover key areas of the decision-making processes, engage external experts as you work to increase diversity,” she says.

Nate Masterson, CEO at Maple Holistics, says company leaders should also understand that diversity can be measured by more than just how a person looks. “In reality, diversity takes into account a multitude of characteristics, including workers with urban versus rural backgrounds, different religious upbringings and even numerous age groups,” Masterson says. “At the end of the day, employing a staff with diverse backgrounds and distinctions enables companies to handle adversity by incorporating different outlooks and approaches.”

Identify and Support Your Internal Talent

Feiman says organizations that want executive teams with more diversity should start by outlining the roles and responsibilities that need to be filled. There’s also an internal vs. external question: “Do we currently have people with potential?” You almost always will. If so, assess them individually via a gap or basket analysis tool to reveal areas to develop in each person.

Dawn E. Christian, a certified inclusion, equity and diversity champion who handles learning strategy at a pharmaceutical firm, says organizations that want to encourage diversity need to assess where they are, not only from a pure numbers perspective, but culturally.

“Have you primed your organization for diversity?” she says. “Does your organization value and uphold a climate of inclusion where there is perceived psychological safety to show up as one's authentic self? Is leadership valued at all levels of the organization, and is there a fostering of a ‘belonging’ culture? These are the cultural attributes that not only will attract top talent, but that will also retain them.”

Don’t Limit Your Internal Talent Pool

Kayla Kelly, marketing manager at Paypro, says many companies only look to the person in the position directly below the executive for their successor — which artificially limits the talent pool.

“Keep an open mind when thinking about potential successors,” she says. “Focus on the skills required versus their current role.”

Harris says it’s key to ensure your organization has “dedicated talent-management opportunities for diverse populations, including transparent succession planning, with widely communicated goals and benchmarks.” If not, “there's room to go deeper,” she says.

Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late

Kelly says succession planning is usually put on the back burner until someone resigns or retires. Instead, she says, companies should start planning as soon as the person in the executive seat is comfortable in his or her role.

This stage of planning would include documenting things that people in your team have done to set themselves apart. Once you feel you have enough information, you can narrow your choices to the top two or three performers, she says.

“With this team, include them in strategy talks and help them acquire the leadership, management and planning skills they'll need for the role,” Kelly says.