Are you ready for the situation when the CEO of your company unexpectedly decides to leave her position? If you don’t have a functional succession plan that would resolve this situation, your senior HR managers or talent managers need to focus on the following steps:
1. Work together with the company’s top management to immediately develop a process for replacing the CEO and present the details of this process to the stakeholders. Make sure that management as well as employees have all the necessary information so that they can work as normal.
2. Find out in which phase succession planning is in your organization and which steps have recently been taken in this direction by management or the departing CEO without HR’s knowledge.
3. Go through the personal responsibilities with the company’s highest representatives and make sure that everyone knows what they are currently responsible for in the organization.
4. Warn the responsible people against selecting the new CEO prematurely. Suggest an interim CEO and allow enough time to make the selection.
5. Search for the new CEO systematically. Proceed based on a clearly defined process for assessing the candidates’ potential, including behavioral aspects.
6. Understand that politics are also involved. But make sure that political interests do not make the final selection.
7. Thoroughly document the entire situation and turn it into a starting point of your future succession planning and talent development strategy.
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