Illustration by Paul Reid
A senior finance executive from a large public company decides to leave on relatively short notice to join another organization. Since this will cause significant disruption to the business, the CEO and remaining executive team quickly look to their leadership pipeline to see who’s ready to step into the role. Although a list of successors had previously been created and discussed, no one feels confident that any of these leaders have what it takes to excel in the position. The CEO decides to do an external executive search, for months leaving the role to an interim leader who is doing two jobs at once. Results suffer, the team stagnates, and momentum is lost.