Stop Grooming Clones: Why Succession Planning Is Failing Us

Succession planning has become the corporate equivalent of estate planning - well-intentioned, overly formal, and almost entirely disconnected from reality. Organizations spend years crafting elaborate charts, grooming “high potentials,” and building leadership pipelines that look more like conveyor belts than crucibles of growth. And yet, when the moment comes, the successor often fails. Why?

Because we’re not planning for leadership. We’re planning for compliance.

The traditional succession model assumes that leadership is a static skillset - something you can transfer like a baton in a relay race. But leadership isn’t a baton. It’s a living, breathing relationship between people, purpose, and context. And context is changing faster than ever.

The Myth of the Mold

Most succession plans are built on the idea of replicating the current leader. We look for someone who “fits the mold,” who has “earned their stripes,” and who can “carry the torch.” But what if the mold is broken? What if the torch is burning out?

The qualities that made someone successful ten years ago - command, control, charisma - are precisely the ones that alienate modern teams. We’re still trying to clone leaders who thrived in a pre-COVID, pre-digital, pre-purpose-driven era. That’s not succession. That’s regression.

As I’ve said before, leadership isn’t a destination - it’s a journey of continual growth. Yet most succession plans are designed to reward stagnation. We promote those who’ve mastered the status quo, not those who challenge it. And then we wonder why innovation stalls and culture deteriorates.

Stop Building Pipelines. Start Building People.

The future of leadership demands emotional intelligence, coaching, and facilitation - not authority, hierarchy, and control

But you won’t find these traits on a résumé. You’ll find them in relationships.

Succession planning must shift from identifying successors to developing successors. That means investing in people - not just their skills, but their self-awareness, their capacity to mentor, and their ability to empower others. It means creating environments where leadership emerges organically, not through appointment but through action.

This is why collective leadership is gaining traction. When leadership is distributed, succession becomes a shared responsibility. Teams learn to lead together, adapt together, and grow together. The result? Resilience. Continuity. And a culture that doesn’t collapse when one person leaves

The Courage to Let Go

One of the hardest truths about succession is that it requires letting go. Letting go of control. Letting go of legacy. Letting go of the belief that your way is the only way.

Real leaders don’t build empires - they build ecosystems. They don’t hoard knowledge - they share it. They don’t protect their position - they prepare others to surpass it.

If your succession plan is designed to preserve your influence, it’s not a plan - it’s a trap. The goal isn’t to be remembered. The goal is to be replaced by someone better.

What's Needed?

We don’t need more succession plans. We need succession philosophies. Ones that embrace change, prioritize people, and reject the outdated notion that leadership is a title to be inherited. Leadership is a behavior to be cultivated. And the best leaders are those who make themselves obsolete.

So stop grooming clones. Start growing leaders.