One of the greatest television series ever is Succession. It centers on a leadership problem as old as human history – who will succeed the leader? Who can, who should, be the leader’s successor, especially if the leader is larger than life?
In Succession the leader is Logan Roy (played by the sensational Brian Cox), founder and chief executive officer of a global media empire, who is not only brilliant but dominant. So dominant his three most obvious successors – two sons and one daughter, each vying to succeed their father – effectively bow at his alter.
Succession capitalizes on a problem to which leadership experts have found no ready solution. One of the leaders’ most important tasks is to ensure continuity. To ensure that when they leave – either by accident or design, either suddenly or deliberately – they will be replaced by someone at least as competent as they. Given this, it’s remarkable how often it doesn’t happen, how often leaders fail to plan carefully, intelligently, for their exit.
In some cases, the problem does not pertain. If the president of the United States must be replaced, there is a mechanism in place for replacement. There are however other countries that have no such provision. If, for example, the president of Russia had to be replaced, it’s not clear who would replace him. There would immediately be a scramble for power, probably a fight for power.
In the corporate world order is supposed to prevail. In publicly held companies are rules and regulations that pertain, intended to ensure a smooth transition. But given that politics, including corporate politics, is all about personality, the best laid plans are often mislaid, or at least waylaid.
Which is precisely what happened last week at Walt Disney Co. Bob Iger, one of the most highly regarded executives of our time, who stepped down as CEO two years ago, stepped back in as CEO immediately to take over from his hand-picked but demonstrably failed successor, Bob Chapek.
I am not alone in suggesting the fiasco at Disney is as one expert put it, “the one black eye that Iger has.” The question is why. Why are leaders who are demonstrably good at apparently everything sometimes miserably bad at ensuring their own successful succession?
Iger is of course not the only example of a leader afflicted by this serious and sometimes even fatal flaw. Arguably the most famous case is General Electric’s Jack Welch. Welch, hailed not many years ago as the greatest chief executive officer of his generation, selected as his successor, Jeffrey Immelt. Immelt, in turn, presided over what became in time the near total downfall of one of America’s most iconic companies.
What then goes on here? What’s the matter with leaders like Welch and Iger – so extraordinarily capable in virtually all areas, so miserably incapable in this one? Here three explanations for failed successions:
- The leader’s professional reluctance to pay the issue the requisite attention. Leaders are fixated on their successes in the present – not the successes of their successors in the future.
- The leader’s psychological inability to acknowledge they are replaceable. Not to speak of being replaced by someone as good as or, heaven forefend, better than they.
- The leader’s spiritual refusal to bow to death. Not death literally – but death metaphorically. Very strong leaders identify very strongly with their roles – they are leaders first and foremost. The idea that one day they will be leaders no longer is difficult if not impossible to accept – it’s a certain kind of death.
To these problems are no easy solutions. They are problems in the human condition to which leaders – especially strong leaders of extended duration – are vulnerable. This means it’s up to those around them to ensure they are replaced by their equals – or by those better than they.