Succession planning is necessary for companies to stay ahead of the curve. Without it the growth can stall and companies can lose significant marketshare.
One of the challenges every company faces is to identify and assess future leaders, internally or externally.
The definition of a leader is a person with vision, insight into the future and the ability to create and run an execution plan or strategies based on their past experiences. This person can then lead the company to the goal that one’s eyes are set upon.
This leader should also be fierce and completely dedicated to attaining the goals that are set. The dreams of a company will come true if this leader shows courage and keeps moving forward regardless of temporary setbacks and not give up right when one more idea would have made that company go viral in a big way.
How do you find such leaders? Even if some think they have done the above, how do you determine how will they be able to do it again for your company?
There are several articles and studies on characteristics of a leader and what to look for in succession planning, including the concept of conscious inclusion which we have also covered in previous press releases.
The evaluation of such ideas is critical. We spoke to a diversity leader last week, when the discussion became quite passionate about leaders who love to debate about the present conditions of a company or market but do not provide their insight on how to make the problem go away.
Having insight to just focus on the problems and be devil’s advocate is maybe necessary, but focusing only on that without comprehending the solutions can be a de-motivational leadership style.
Here are the top 5 steps to take during evaluation of future leaders:
Evaluating the understanding their knowledge of the business, the competition and what are the current trends within.
If they were the leader to grow a division today, then what are their strategies and ideas to do so?
This sounds quite straightforward but when you talk to leaders there are several who will ask you for the goals and strategies that have been applied or what the company wants to do.
Then there will be a few who will come up with brilliant strategies to get us there.
Cross checking those ideas to see if there is depth in them or they are just theoretical high-level ideas
How do they plan to execute these ideas? What will they need to become successful?
This is where the leader’s past accolades will matter.
This is also where we evaluate if the leader has a startup mentality or is a big company person needing structure.
Finally, are they able to come up with a clear plan on meeting the goals even before they join or take on that role?
Leadership roles are critical for a company’s success. A person with limited insight or limited grit might not be able to capitalize the runway. They will fall short, and the company will have to go back to the drawing board.
Some of the above might sound a bit tedious, but one must perform the due diligence in executive level roles.
Now you might challenge by stating that an articulate leader might be able to manage the answers in an interview but might not be able to execute it.
By performing some of the steps above, you are evaluating their ability to think fast, create a plan, show interest. If someone is not too keen, they will make excuses and their plans will fall short.
Let’s look at Industries with roles open today. We chose the industries below as these are areas where transformations are happening.
Industrial Automation covers several areas such as Manufacturing Optimization, Asset Performance Management, Manufacturing Execution Systems. All of these areas are being enhanced or improved by technologies making the processes efficient.
Computer Software – This is a generic term but an industry which caters to several other industry challenges including solving the above-mentioned problems for Automation.
Financial Services – This Industry is trying to understand the new dynamics in regard to investments and demographics. To cater to the current demographics they will need to transform.
Oil & Energy – Several companies are trying to innovate towards the net zero journey. This is where we need leaders who don’t just articulate the problems or get stuck in a political debate but leaders who can see the future and solve challenges associated with it.
We can also look at the above data from a ‘role’ perspective, meaning which functional areas do we need to plan for succession? Areas can be in Sales, Services, R&D (AI leader), or Global Strategy! Whatever the function, we need to prepare our internal teams to be ready or hire people who have the vision or bring a new best practice that we were unaware of!
Abhijeet Narvekar – The FerVID Group CEO states “An Executive candidate, who is able to showcase her or his ability to identify the market/client’s problem and share future impact strategies to solve them, will always be in the top 3 candidates in the pipeline”.
Listen to our CEO talk about Future Leaders in the Link below
The case study is available at https://go.thefervidgroup.com/futureleaders.
About The FerVID Group
The FerVID Group was founded in 2010 and serves the Industrial Automation, AI and ML industry. It is known for Hire executives in the Industrial Automation and AI space.
