look before you leave: tips to ensure a successful succession

Think back on your career, from the time you got your first job, through the first promotion, up to the present day. On that career journey, it's likely you had mentors—supervisors and managers who recognized and nurtured your talents.

If you are in mid-career or later, the next generation of managers is right behind you. And now it's your turn to identify the talented up-and-comers on your staff who can support you now and step into your shoes when the time comes.

You'll find your efforts are amply rewarded. Not only will you be doing your protégé a favor, but you'll also improve your chances of retaining that worker. Talented employees who perceive that they have a career track are less likely to look elsewhere, thus avoiding all the costs of finding, hiring, and training a replacement. On top of that, you may be clearing your own path to promotion—training a capable successor gives your own bosses assurances that you will not leave a void.

Without question, it's a smart career move to establish a succession plan for your department. But how do you go about doing that? What follows are four tips for ensuring a smooth succession:

• Identify viable candidates. Start by evaluating all of the staff members in your department. This is a time to cast your net as wide as possible, looking beyond just those with formal education and business training. Although your direct reports are the most obvious prospects, you might also find some extremely promising candidates among your hourly employees.
  
  Make it a point to identify more than one candidate for management development. By singling out one person, you leave yourself open to charges of favoritism. And if that person decides to leave, you'll be forced to start over.
• Mentor your candidates. Once you've identified several candidates, provide your up-and-comers with the support and encouragement they need to expand their professional horizons. Send them to association meetings, conferences, and seminars. Encourage them to subscribe to professional journals. Keep them informed of developments in company policy and procedure, including the underlying management rationale for any changes.
• Delegate to your candidates. Sure it's tough, but you have to learn to let go. Start by turning over small tasks and jobs to your protégés. As they master these smaller jobs, give them progressively more challenging and important assignments. But don't just walk away once you've handed off these tasks. You still have ultimate responsibility for them, so it's important that you stay involved and monitor your subordinates' work.
• Cross-train your candidates. Whenever possible, arrange for your protégés to get hands-on experience in other areas of your department and different parts of the organization. You don't have to set up a formal cross-training program; this can be as simple as having them fill in for someone who calls in sick or is out on vacation. The idea is to help them gain in-depth knowledge of the various parts of the operation they may someday be managing. The more they know, the more effective they're likely to be.
  
  Some managers may be reluctant to groom potential successors because they feel threatened by the rising stars. That sort of thinking is counterproductive at best. Fostering the development of the next generation of supervisors and managers is one mark of a leader— one that senior management is bound to recognize.