“Out with the old, in with the new” is a prominent theme within the Democratic party right now.
During the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, President Biden bid a heartfelt adieu to his decades-long political career and symbolically passed the torch to Vice President Harris. In his speech, Biden highlighted the successes and shortcomings of his tenure as president, which he described as “the honor of my lifetime.” He also admitted, despite previous hesitation, to stepping aside because he’s “too old to stay as president.”
Making the decision to step down as president is, in some ways, similar to making the same decision as a CEO. These jobs may be the “epitome of everything they’ve ever wanted to do,” said Chris Treadwell, senior partner and head of executive consulting at leadership firm RHR International. “They finally arrived, and now they’ve been there for a while…When do they decide it’s time to pass the baton to somebody else?”
Treadwell shared with HR Brew what leadership lessons people pros can learn from Biden’s hand-off to Harris, and how to incorporate them into their executive succession plans.
Start the conversation. The C-suite and board of directors should have “open conversations” about the timing of a CEO’s exit, even if it’s not imminent, Treadwell told HR Brew. “Even if that’s not for five years, we should still be talking about it.”
CHROs can be stewards of these conversations, he said, especially if the CEO is reluctant or unaware of the need to have them.
“[Stepping down] requires a lot of self awareness to say…‘Am I holding on to something?’” he said. “It’s time for me to ask some tough questions, and I think those questions are really hard to ask for people in that stage of life or stage of career.”
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During these conversations, CHROs can leverage their experience coaching and guiding in order to move the company in a different direction.
“It could be the CHRO who says to the CEO, ‘Hey, it’s probably good for you. It shows good leadership on your part to step [down],’” Treadwell said. “They can coach the CEO a little bit and help the CEO understand…and say, ‘No, it’s time for us to bring this forward and have an open conversation about this.’”
Even younger CEOs, especially those who may have built the business, may find it hard to step down, Treadwell said, not necessarily due to their age, but rather a feeling that they’re the only one who can do the job at hand.
“We deceive ourselves as leaders. We say things like…‘We need to change, but not now, because I’m sort of uniquely qualified,” he said. “We’ve convinced ourselves that there’s probably nobody else that can do this…that’s false, and there’s lots of other people that could do that.”
It’s common, Treadwell said, for CEOs to struggle, on a personal level, with letting go. CHROs can help them navigate those feelings.
Lead the charge. CHROs should explicitly define succession processes, Treadwell said, by identifying potential internal and external successors and offering developmental exercises to prepare internal successors, and facilitate ongoing succession conversations. Providing CEOs with a clear path forward can make the process less daunting.
“The CHRO, I think, can be a real proponent of building that process, and most CEOs have never gone through that,” he said.