Leadership Succession

by Stewart D. Friedman

Overview

This volume focuses on the most critical strategic activity in any organization, namely, who gets chosen to sit in the top echelon of the pyramid. Friedman argues that it is the quality of corporate leadership that will determine corporate winners and losers in the global competitive game.The stakes in leadership succession are high. The selection of key figures is the one human resource activity that no one belittles for being of secondary importance. Indeed, leadership succession is so important and central in many executive minds that it crowds out any other work. The succession process is often fraught with political intrigue, it lacks discipline, and excludes meaningful involvement of senior human resource executives.The contributors to this imaginative volume reveal a succession planning process that is frequently sloppy, superficial, and regularly sabotaged by senior management when they give it short shrift in terms of quality time. In addition, senior management often overrides sound decisions when it comes to filling key positions. The result is a lack of integrity throughout the human resource systems that eventually leads to a collapse of belief in the system and its governance.Noel M. Tichy, a leading figure in the studies of human resource management, has said, "Stewart Friedman is to be congratulated for a successful effort in providing a state of the art look at leadership succession. [He] provides us with an empirical database of what is happening in U.S. corporations, helpful prescriptions for future improvement of leadership succession, and a realistic assessment of the human resource executive challenges in this area."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412842365
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/15/2011
Pages:	172
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Stewart D. Friedman is practice professor of management and founding director, Wharton Work/Life Integration Project at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Harvard Business Review , International Journal of Leadership Education , and American Behavioral Scientist . Stewart D. Friedman is practice professor of management and founding director, Wharton Work/Life Integration Project at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Harvard Business Review , International Journal of Leadership Education , and American Behavioral Scientist .

Table of Contents

Introdution to the Paperback Edition vii

Prologue xi

1 Succession Systems in Large Corporations: Characteristics and Correlates of Performance Stewart D. Friedman 1

2 Matching Managers to Strategies: Point and Counterpoint Anil K. Gupta 25

3 Dilemmas in Linking Succession Planning to Individual Executive Learning Douglas T. Hall 45

4 Concerns of the CEO Edward H. Bowman 77

5 The Dynamic Organizational Contexts of Executive Succession: Considerations and Challenges Craig Lundberg 97

6 Heroes in Collision: Chief Executive Retirement and the Parade of Future Leaders Jeffrey Sonnenfeld 115

7 On Executive Succession: A Conversation with Lester B. Korn Douglas M Cowherd 145