Explore this article to uncover insights on these issues:
- How to plan for leadership changes to maintain organizational stability.
- Implementing long-term and emergency strategies to cultivate leadership internally.
- Communication techniques to manage leadership transitions.
- Using mentorship and development plans to nurture future leaders.
- How to maintain morale and clarify career paths for successful succession.
By Chief James Ebert
The most significant transformation an organization can experience involves changes in leadership. In law enforcement, this is frequently perceived solely as the retirement of a Chief of Police or the election of a new Sheriff. However, the reality is that any change in leadership can cause transition issues and lead to organizational stress. Your ability as a leader to perform succession planning effectively, both entering and exiting positions, is often among the most impactful actions you will undertake.
As a departing leader, your actions and decisions can significantly influence the future success or failure of your successors. To ensure that the future is in good hands and that the transition proceeds smoothly, there are five key areas every leader should honestly assess:
There are times when succession planning will afford you the opportunity to meet and conduct a proper turnover, such as promotions and lateral moves. In other instances, there may not be the opportunity to do such a turnover. In those cases, the option is to put your succession planning into a written format. Either way, open and honest communication is the critical ingredient to executing a succession plan.
Types of succession plans
Generally, a law enforcement agency and its leadership positions should have two succession plans: a long-term plan and an emergency plan. This can prove to be tricky at times due to policy issues.
Having a succession plan in place does not suggest that a specific leader must be named in advance or automatically assumes that an Assistant Chief or Deputy Sheriff would advance into the top role. Instead, succession planning is a course of action, as well as an opportunity to cultivate leadership within and outside of the institution prior to anyone in a leadership position stepping down. [1].
Long-term succession offers a lot of benefits that can include stability, career focus and departmental loyalty. According to Noel Tichy, a management succession advisor, “sound succession planning is all about picking the right people for the right jobs at the right stage of their personal and professional development.” [2]
There are often times when emergency succession planning may be the only option available. Situations such as politics, internal disciplinary actions, retirements and sudden resignations may hamper long-term succession planning efforts. The first step in emergency succession planning is communication. An emergency communication plan should be deployed to employees directly impacted by the change. These plans should include broad external and internal communications such as press releases, emails, meetings and so on. Small group communication between supervisors and subordinates must be included in the effective plan. The flow of communication is vital during emergency succession planning to maintain the confidence of both employees and employers. [3] Often times, we fail as leaders to effectively communicate the upcoming changes that are happening.
Historically, the next direct report fills the role of emergency successor. An emergency successor should be named with the thought process that they will hold the position for a limited time, typically no longer than three months. This gives the agency the opportunity to evaluate the several possibilities for filling this position. Once the emergency succession position has been filled, it is time for leadership teams to evaluate potential long-term successors.
Succession candidates fall into several different categories. These categories include:
- Ready now candidates
- Ready in one to two years
- No valid candidates available
- Position is no longer necessary.
The best-case scenario is when previous succession planning has been successful and the direct report can serve as an emergency successor and is a “ready now” candidate. Ready now candidates have all the required qualifications, competencies and experiences needed to fill the position. Unfortunately, sometimes a ready now candidate is not available at the time of an emergency departure, but there may be a candidate who could fill the position within a year or two. In this scenario, leadership teams will name a temporary fill while completing the training needed for the one-to-two-year successor to be ready to take command.
There are also times when there are no viable succession candidates internally. In this case, the agency should fill the position with an emergency successor while conducting an external search to attempt to land the best possible external candidate.
Finally, for positions beyond the top, there may no longer be a need for the position to be filled for a variety of reasons. During this scenario, leaders can take advantage of the departure to restructure their department as needed.
Solutions for challenges during leadership changes
Whenever change occurs, it invariably brings challenges. Here are three main challenges and strategies for overcoming each of them:
1. Empowering your agency’s succession potential
Law enforcement agencies often prefer to fill the majority of their promotions internally. To effectively do so, agencies need to develop plans for gathering leadership potential data. Traditionally, this data has been limited to annual evaluations and personal interactions. However, there are additional methods to gain better insight into potential succession candidates at all levels.
The first method involves getting to know potential candidates long before they express formal interest in positions. Through one-on-one conversations, not only do you get a better feel for a potential leader’s personality, but you can also gauge their true interest level in a position. Mentorship at critical career moments can significantly impact an officer’s professional development.
A second way to gather data on potential candidates is through leadership development plans. These plans include elements such as annual evaluations, leadership personality assessments, research projects and formal leadership training progression. Additionally, administrators can conduct write-ups on their leaders’ performance during specific events, such as parade details, community events and other operational activities. This leadership plan can serve as a career pathway for potential candidates, and it provides an excellent means for the agency’s administration to assess the candidate’s performance and potential.
2. Following through on development plans
Often, as leaders, we are bogged down by the day-to-day administrative tasks of running our agencies that we forget about keeping our succession plans current. Succession plans should be viewed as living documents that get updated frequently, and the preparation for succession is an ongoing process.
Generally, each leadership position should have a pool of two or more qualified candidates. To achieve a well-rounded leadership candidate, I recommend that administrators rotate the experience opportunities within the agency. Often, a person is promoted to a section and stays in that section until a departure occurs in a different section, and then they move over. I advocate that positions should be rotated every two to three years. A criminal investigation sergeant who has not seen patrol for five years has typically lost certain perspectives that will be needed later on when they are promoted to Lieutenant of patrol, and vice versa. By rotating these leadership positions, you are developing the officers’ careers and making them stronger candidates in your succession plans.
3. Managing employee morale
A frequently neglected aspect of succession planning is maintaining employee morale. There may be disappointment among some employees who find themselves excluded from the plan, while others may perceive an increase in their duties coupled with a vague prospect of promotion. [4] Let’s face it, we are competitors. Losing a promotion process hurts, especially when you thought the succession plan included you. This can lead to difficulties within the department if not handled properly. Leaders need to be clear about how your succession planning works.
Communication is critical throughout all phases of succession planning, but especially during debriefing after a promotional process has concluded. Explaining the requirements, skills, and attributes necessary to become a competitive candidate in a succession plan can help relieve the sting of not being selected for promotion. This transparency also helps to ensure that your employees understand why someone is a part of the plan or promoted while someone else is not. People are the most important part of our agency, and they deserve to be told ways they can improve, in order to make them a better candidate for future promotional opportunities.
Succession planning is often discussed but rarely implemented in law enforcement agencies. Now is the time to shift our mentality and make succession planning a critical part of your agency’s success.
Continue the discussion
Here are five questions police leaders should ask after reading this article:
- How can we more effectively identify and develop “ready now” candidates within our agency?
- What steps can we take to improve our long-term and emergency succession plans?
- In what ways can we enhance communication and transparency during the succession planning process?
- How can we better utilize rotation of roles and experiences to prepare future leaders?
- What measures can we implement to ensure all team members feel valued and understand their potential career paths within the agency?
References and resources
1. Martin J, Samels J. (2004.) Presidential Transition In Higher Education. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.
2. Tichy NM. (2014.) Succession: Mastering the Make or break process of Leadership Transition. Penguin.
3. Bano YO. (2021.) Revitalising Organisations’ Emergency Succession Planning in the Face of the Covid-19 Outbreak. The European Journal of Social & Behavioural Sciences, 30:1, 5-20.
4. Newcova M. (November 15, 2023.). How to Overcome These 7 Succession Planning Challenges.
Andreev I. (June 17, 2023.) Succession Planning.
Muthusamy A. (2018.) Succession Mangement: The Definite Do’s and the Detrimental Don’ts. Randburg: KR Publishing.
About the author
James Ebert began his career with Purdue Global as a part-time adjunct instructor in 2021. He became a full-time professor in 2022. Prior to teaching at Purdue Global, he served as a part-time adjunct instructor with University of the Cumberlands beginning in 2017. His professional experience includes 20 years of law enforcement, with the last five years serving as chief of police in Richmond, Kentucky. Simultaneously, James is in a second career in the military reserves. His 20-year military career included service in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and United States Navy, where he served in the capacity of both Enlisted and as an Officer. From 2010-2016, he served as a Commanding Officer of three different Navy Reserve Security units.