Succession Planning and Diversity Leadership

Succession planning is central to diversity leadership for top managerial positions in communities, organizations and the workplace. Historically, indigenous communities have always engaged in putting in place succession planning processes for their leadership. Let us learn from them and create succession plans for the leadership of diverse organizations and workplaces. In accomplishing this task and reflecting on the diversity of the workplace at the bottom as research has shown, let us seriously consider how to accomplish diversity leadership succession planning for top managerial positions.

Succession Planning

Succession planning involves replacement plans of a potential list of successors. When this is done in advance, rather than in an emergency, more care and thought are put into perspectives. Most importantly for succession planning to effectively work within diverse organizations and the workplace, recruitment of top managerial positions must occur from potential leaders that are from diverse groups, which include visible minorities and women. Research has shown that visible minorities and women are absent from top managerial positions. Diversity must be visible at the top of organizations and boardrooms, and not only at the bottom of organizations as shown from the findings from Stephen P. Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, Boston. Additionally, statistics have shown that diversity pays. Professor Cedric Herring from the University of Illinois at Chicago demonstrated this in his research on "Does Diversity Pay?: Race, Gender, and the Business Case for Diversity. Organizations and the workplace need transparent recruitment programs to attract leaders from diverse cultures. These are the role models that others need to see how to emulate and learn empowerment. Simultaneously, diverse leaders should be encouraged and supported in their positions with mentors and specific programs. Succession planning for diverse leadership is critical to all organizations. At the same time, bear in mind that traditional leadership development approaches are flawed as I have shown in some of my previous blog discussions.

Given this, take a look at what DiverseCity The Greater Toronto Leadership Project is putting into place to create diverse leadership.

More...

Dr. Marilyn J