Executive Succession Planning Without Data Is Just Guesswork

Executive Succession Planning: Why It Fails and How Objective Assessment Makes the Difference

Selecting a successor for a critical executive role often sounds straightforward in theory. In practice, it is anything but.

Many succession discussions stall at a familiar crossroads: two candidates, both highly accomplished, both respected, both “ready,” and yet only one role to fill. Performance histories are strong on both sides. Stakeholders are divided. Preferences begin to surface, often framed as questions of style, chemistry, or “fit.” What should be a strategic decision quietly turns into a subjective debate.

This scenario plays out repeatedly at the executive level, and it exposes a fundamental weakness in traditional succession planning. When organizations lack a clear definition of what the role truly requires and objective data about how candidates are likely to perform in that role, even experienced leaders are left relying on intuition. The result is uncertainty, delayed decisions, and increased risk at the moment leadership continuity matters most.

Executive succession planning is one of the most strategically important responsibilities of senior leadership and HR. It determines whether an organization can sustain performance, preserve culture, and execute strategy through leadership transitions. Yet despite its importance, succession planning at the executive level frequently underdelivers. Roles remain vacant too long, successors underperform, internal candidates disengage, and boards lose confidence in the pipeline they were promised.

The failure is rarely due to lack of effort or intent. Most organizations believe they have a succession plan. The problem is that too many of these plans are built on assumptions, politics, and incomplete data rather than a rigorous, objective understanding of what success in the role truly requires and who is best equipped to deliver it.

High-performing succession planning is not about identifying a “ready now” individual and hoping for the best. It is a disciplined, three-stage process: defining the role objectively, evaluating candidates against that definition, and intentionally developing the selected successor.

Three Reasons Why Executive Succession Planning Typically Fails

Roles Are Defined by History, Not Strategy

Many succession efforts begin with a flawed premise: that the next executive should look like the current one. Job profiles are often recycled, overly generic, or based on legacy expectations rather than future strategic demands.

As markets shift, technologies evolve, and organizational complexity increases, executive roles change, often dramatically. Yet succession decisions are still made using outdated definitions of success. When organizations fail to clearly articulate the future capabilities required for the role, they risk selecting leaders who are optimized for yesterday’s challenges.

Without an objective, forward-looking definition of the role, succession planning becomes an exercise in pattern matching rather than strategic foresight.

Subjective Judgment Replaces Evidence, Especially Around “Fit”

A common and costly flaw in executive succession planning is the reliance on subjective perceptions of fit. In a recent Forbes article “Why Succession Planning Fails,” the author points to a frequently overlooked factor: the candidate’s psychology: “Succession decisions often overlook the candidate’s personality psychology, how they are wired to think, respond under pressure, and lead, despite its critical impact on long-term success.”

At senior levels, reputations are powerful. Confidence, executive presence, and sponsorship by influential leaders can easily be mistaken for readiness. Past performance in a different context is assumed to predict future success, even when the new role requires greater scale, ambiguity, and emotional complexity.

What is typically missing is structured insight into how a candidate operates beneath observable behavior:

• What truly motivates them
• How they react emotionally under sustained pressure
• What conditions energize or drain their leadership effectiveness
• Where hidden derailment risks may exist

Without objective assessment, organizations routinely overestimate strengths, underestimate risk, and fail to account for the psychological demands of executive leadership.

Candidates Are Named but Not Actively Prepared

Even when organizations identify potential successors early, many fail to prepare them in any meaningful or systematic way. Succession planning becomes a labeling exercise rather than a developmental strategy.  A recent Harvard Business Review article highlights this gap clearly: “In many organizations, succession planning identifies future leaders but fails to actively prepare them for the roles they are expected to assume.”

This disconnect creates predictable outcomes. Leaders step into enterprise-level roles without adequate exposure, feedback, or behavioral development. Critical gaps, often visible years in advance, remain unaddressed until after the transition, when the cost of failure is highest.

The Role of Objective Assessment in Successful Succession Planning

Organizations that consistently succeed in executive transitions approach succession planning as a system, not an event. Objective assessment plays a critical role at every stage of that system.

Step One: Define the Role Objectively

Effective succession planning starts with a clear, evidence-based definition of the role, one grounded in future business needs rather than historical precedent.

Tools designed specifically for this purpose, such as MRG’s Role Expectations process, help organizations move beyond generic job descriptions and surface the leadership behaviors and success criteria that truly differentiate performance in a given role. By clarifying expectations up front, Role Expectations creates alignment among boards, CEOs, and HR leaders and establishes a defensible foundation for evaluating succession candidates.

Without this clarity, even the most sophisticated assessments of individuals will be misapplied.

Step Two: Evaluate Candidates Against the Role, Not Each Other

Once the role is clearly defined, candidates must be evaluated against that standard using objective, validated assessments. This is where understanding personality psychology and emotional drivers becomes especially important.

Executive assessments that go beneath surface behavior provide insight into:

• Leadership potential and learning agility
• Cognitive complexity and decision-making style
• Emotional intelligence and stress response
• Interpersonal impact and influence patterns
• Motivational drivers that shape sustained performance

For example, motivation-based assessments such as the Individual Directions Inventory (IDI) help organizations understand why a leader behaves the way they do, not just what they do. By identifying underlying emotional drivers, the IDI provides critical insight into how executives are likely to respond to pressure, change, conflict, and increased scope.

When combined with leadership behavior data, this creates a far more complete picture of executive readiness.

Step Three: Select and Develop Using a Unified Framework

One of the most common breakdowns in succession planning is the disconnect between selection and development. Different tools, models, and language are used at each stage, making it difficult to translate insight into action.

Using a sound, research-based framework, such as the MRG Leadership Effectiveness Analysis (LEA®) 360, for both selection and development helps eliminate this gap. The same leadership behaviors used to evaluate readiness can then be used to:

• Identify development priorities
• Inform a targeted coaching plan
• Track growth over time
• Prepare successors well before transition

This creates a seamless, defensible succession process in which assessment insight flows directly into development action.

Case Study: When Role Clarity Changed the Outcome

A global manufacturing company faced an imminent COO transition as its long-tenured operations leader prepared to retire. Two internal executives, both seasoned, well respected, and highly successful, were identified as potential successors. One led plant operations with deep technical expertise, while the other oversaw supply chain and continuous improvement across regions.

Initially, the decision stalled. Performance histories were comparable, peer feedback was evenly split, and senior leaders described the candidates as “neck and neck.” Informal debate centered on style preferences and personal comfort rather than role-specific requirements.

Recognizing the risk, the organization paused the decision and began with an objective definition of the future COO role. Using a structured Role Expectations process, the leadership team clarified that the next COO would need to:

• Lead enterprise-wide operational transformation
• Navigate increasing global complexity and margin pressure
• Influence across functions and regions without direct authority
• Maintain resilience under sustained operational and board-level pressure

Both candidates were then assessed against this definition using objective tools that examined leadership behaviors and underlying motivational drivers.

The results were decisive. While both executives were strong operators, the assessments revealed meaningful differences in how each leader handled complexity, ambiguity, and cross-enterprise influence. One candidate’s motivational profile and leadership behaviors aligned far more closely with the future demands of the role, while the other was better suited for a narrower operational scope.

What had once been a subjective, politically sensitive decision became clear and defensible. The selected successor entered the role with a targeted coaching plan already in place, accelerating readiness and significantly reducing transition risk. Just as importantly, the non-selected candidate received transparent feedback and a development path aligned to their strengths, preserving engagement and retention.

The Strategic Payoff

Organizations that embed objective assessment into executive succession planning consistently achieve better outcomes:

• Higher success rates in executive transitions
• Faster time to full effectiveness
• Reduced derailment risk
• Stronger leadership pipelines
• Increased confidence from boards and stakeholders

Most importantly, they move succession planning from a subjective, episodic exercise to a disciplined, strategic capability.

Closing Thought

Executive succession planning fails not because leaders underestimate its importance, but because they underestimate its complexity. Understanding the future role, the business context, and the candidate’s personality psychology, and then translating insight into a disciplined coaching plan, requires rigor, data, and discipline.

For senior HR professionals and senior leaders, the message is clear: succession planning must be treated with the same analytical rigor as any other critical business investment. Objective assessment, anchored by clear role expectations and supported by integrated frameworks for selection, development, and coaching, is foundational to sustainable leadership continuity.

Christine Chasse has been a Senior Executive Coach with MRG for over 16 years. You can find and follow Christine on LinkedIn.