Leadership Competency & Succession Planning

Succession planning alone does not create effective leaders. Mid-market organizations achieve better outcomes when leadership development focuses on building real leadership capability, not just role readiness. By understanding four leadership competency profiles, organizations can design development approaches that prepare future leaders to deliver results, strengthen teams, and support sustainable growth.

Succession Planning Is Not the Same as Leadership Development

Is your organization’s leadership development process focused on placing managers into leadership positions to meet succession planning objectives, or are you intentionally developing individuals into leaders who can truly move the business forward?

Organizations strive to have strong leaders in their most critical roles. An effective succession planning process is a great way to identify talent for those roles.Unfortunately, many traditional succession planning approaches look to nominate someone who can ‘take over’, without well-thought-out development plans to ensure they are actually ready to lead.

This is where many mid-market organizations experience leadership gaps. The role may be filled, but the capability to lead through complexity, change, and growth is still developing.

Why Succession Planning Alone Falls Short

In many organizations, leadership development places heavy emphasis on technical or functional capability. While this is important, it is rarely sufficient on its own.

Development of technical or functional competency must be complemented with experiential learning that provides opportunities to lead, make decisions, and influence others..

Why is that?

Because leadership is a process, not a position.

People do not become effective leaders simply by receiving a title. Leadership capability is intentionally built through experience, reflection, and feedback that increases a leader’s ability to positively impact those around them.

Four Profiles of Leadership Development Competency

Think about the different people you have reported to over your career. Do any of these profiles ring true? Each represents a different level of leadership development competency and organizational impact:

The "Boss" This individual is given a "manager" job title and relies on authority to influence others. This type of leader relies on rules, policies, and hierarchy to direct work. While this approach may maintain structure, it rarely builds strong teams. Most employees under this type of leader often work strictly within the boundaries of their roles, with limited ownership or engagement. The Leader Others Want to Work With This leader understands that their success depends on the success of others. They focus on encouraging their team and helping individuals perform at their best. This type of leader invests time in understanding people's strengths and intentionally applies those strengths to achieve team outcomes. Trust and engagement begin to grow as a result. The Highly Productive Team Lead This leader is known for getting things done. They build on strong relationships and elevate team effectiveness by translating the organization’s strategy into clear tangible outcomes for each team member. They provide direction while empowering individuals with decision-making responsibility. The team operates with greater clarity, accountability, and momentum The Developer of Others At the highest level of leadership competency, these leaders intentionally develop others to be great leaders in their own right. They create a sustainable competitive advantage for their organization by recruiting the best people possible, placing them in positions that leverage their strengths, equipping them with the tools to succeed and empowering them to do their job well. Most importantly, they know when to step back and allow other to lead.

These four profiles illustrate that leadership development is not binary. It is a progression. As leaders grow, their impact expands from managing tasks to enabling people, teams, and ultimately the organization itself. The role of succession planning, then, is not just to identify who is next, but to intentionally support leaders as they move along this continuum.

What This Means for Succession Planning

Leadership is a process.Competence as a leader is demonstrated by the level of impact a leader has on the people around them..

An effective succession planning process does more than identify who is next in line. It actively develops future leaders by creating opportunities for growth, feedback, and real leadership experience. This requires organizational commitment to support the full development of these successors, not just their technical readiness.

For mid-market organizations, this approach reduces leadership risk, strengthens internal capability, and supports long-term performance.

→ Hear from our clients: Kim Lefort shares how Richcraft’s investment in developing its leaders strengthened decision-making, accountability, and organizational performance. 

Building Leadership CapabilityWith Intention

Organizations that take leadership development seriously treat it as an ongoing process, not a one-time exercise.They recognize that developing leaders requires structure, clarity, and support that evolves as leaders grow.

We work with mid-market organizations to design personalized leadership development experiences that build real capability. Our programs support leaders at different stages of development, helping them increase their impact, lead more effectively through others, and prepare for future roles with confidence.

Better leadership starts with better development.
Stratford works with mid-market organizations to create better people, positioned to be better leaders through intentional leadership development and succession strategies. If you are looking to strengthen leadership capability and build momentum for the future, we can help.

About the Author

Dean Fulford brings more than 20 years of experience and a deep expertise in leadership development, organizational development and design, project management, process mapping, and best-practice benchmarking activities. With an extensive background in organization development and effectiveness, performance consulting and process improvement, Dean compliments his HR background with strong process management and competency-based project experience. With an Engineering degree he brings a high technical aptitude to his engagements that make him a credible voice with deeply technical clients.

This blog post was originally published in 2017. It has been updated with new content.