Internal or External Successor?
Among the most challenging aspects of developing a succession plan is the consideration of whether the next leader will come from inside the organization or out. Leo Mullin, former CEO of a number of large companies and expert in the area of succession, reflects on how the organizations he led thought about this issue.
"For us, succession planning is a never-ending process that continuously develops talent two to three levels deep within our company.”
He adds, "
Our ongoing preference as a board is to find an internal successor to the CEO in order to maintain our strategic heading and preserve our culture."[1]
Conversely, Vanderblomen’s research in the world of the church indicates,
"One trend we've noticed is that the right person to succeed is often the one who has been prepared elsewhere."[2]
These two viewpoints may not necessarily be contradictory as the view of Vanderbloemen is simply underlining the idea that a successor candidate needs to have some experience in other organizations in order to be able to identify the culture and practices of the organization that he may be called to lead.
In any case, whether the person is promoted from within or hired from outside, the statistics on successful initial transition in the world of business are grim. According to Ciampa,
"Only about 25 percent of those next-in-line executives hired from the outside succeed in the CEO job, and only about 50 percent of those who have been promoted from within."[3]
According to a recent Barna survey, the outcomes in the world of the church may not be significantly different. That said, there does seem to be a slightly higher rate of success when a business or a church pursues an internal successor. This is particularly true if the church is thriving at the time of transition.
However, if at the time of transition the congregation is in a rut or is trying to work its way through a crisis transition, there is often a greater desire for change in which case an external candidate may be preferred.
The upshot of all this is that no matter who the successor pastor is a planned transition is much better than an unplanned transition.
“When transition is planned in advance, pastoral and leadership staff have time to map out the shift without emotions and lack of time being thrown into the equation. This approach is more likely to lead to positive outcomes once all is said and done. In general, churches where the pastor departs entirely—most common in unplanned transitions—have more tumultuous outcomes. As you might expect, pastors who depart entirely are most likely to move on to pastor another church (34%). Half of incoming pastors say there was no plan before the previous pastor began to transition out (51%). In addition, one-third of incoming pastors reports that a lack of planning created extreme difficulty (12%) or major obstacles (21%) to achieving a smooth and successful transition. Taken together, these data drive home one of the big takeaways from this research: If you can, plan.” Barna Group, Planned Pastoral Transitions Lead to Better Outcomes, Aug. 6, 2019.
My research concurs and indicates that if a congregation takes the time to undertake a planned succession the chances of a healthy transition are greatest with a successor who has been prepared internally.
[1] Saporito and Winum, Inside CEO Succession, 78.
[2] Vanderbloemen, Bird, and Ortberg, Next, 24.
[3] Ciampa and Dotlich, Transitions at the Top, 5.
