Center for Healthcare Governance Monographs 2007

2007 - Leadership Continuity: Avoiding the Ultimate “Gotcha”

Overview:
What happens when a hospital or health system faces an unexpected CEO transition with no feasible internal candidates or an officer-level position opens and no viable candidates are ready for promotion? In this publication, Deborah Cornwall and Wilmot Gravenslund of The Corlund Group discuss these leadership succession “gotchas”, outlining how they can occur as well as strategies to over come them. The authors contend that avoiding these situations is the governing board’s responsibility and involves linking CEO succession to broader internal leadership continuity planning.

This publication explains the importance of leadership development and succession planning and why many health care organizations don’t focus on these processes as seriously as they should. The authors discuss in depth three fundamental challenges that boards need to confront and address to over come succession planning inertia:

  • developing a strategic perspective on leadership continuity,
  • creating feasible succession options, and
  • partnering with the CEO without abdicating board leadership.

They also review 10 steps that are typically conducted by organizations that take a comprehensive approach to leadership development and continuity and provide resources that can help boards better understand their role in the leadership succession process, how to identify priorities and how to keep the transition process on track.

This publication can be a valuable resource for both boards and chief executives. It can serve as a primer on leadership development and transition planning for board members who are part of the CEO selection process or as background reading for a board education session or leadership retreat. It can also assist chief executives who are incumbents or in transition themselves to better understand the leadership succession process and how to most effectively participate in it.

Cornwall and Gravenslund suggest that the most effective boards consider leadership continuity planning and development as an ongoing priority. This publication can help boards and chief executives keep these activities front and center on the leadership agenda and successfully discharge the min ways that help ensure organizational success.

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