A popular adage about leaders says the most effective of them build self-sufficient organizations. If the conductor leaves, the orchestra plays on. But let’s be honest: That’s not true for many of today’s most influential leaders, in business or politics. Instead, as this year’s run-up to the U.S. election has made plain, we often elevate leaders who believe they’re irreplaceable. Without me, the entire enterprise disintegrates, these leaders seem to think. The music stops.
Now Americans are watching in real time the problems this can cause. Less than a month before the start of the Democratic National Convention, the 81-year-old sitting president, Joe Biden, has capitulated to demands from within his party that he stand down from his campaign for a second term and make way for a younger candidate. His decision has won praise, although some say, as Frank Bruni put it in the New York Times, that it came “weeks later than it should have, after too much secrecy, too much arrogance, too much denial.”
At the time of writing, the Democrats are scrambling to build a process for finding a new nominee. Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, and she is seen as the frontrunner after several powerful Democrats—but not all—quickly backed her.
The Democrats may still pull off a successful transition to a new candidate, but no one would say it has been a smooth process so far. And Biden’s critics say his administration has failed to give Harris opportunities to demonstrate her ability to lead (a complaint that could be made about previous administrations, too). Having an emergency line-of-succession plan is not the same as building up the party’s next presidential contender.
Meanwhile, Republicans remain solidly united behind their 78-year-old candidate. Even those who once rejected Donald Trump’s policies and antagonistic tone have endorsed him. As the nominee’s daughter-in-law and Republican National Committee leader Lara Trump said, “Every single penny will go to the number one and the only job of the RNC: that is, electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country.” But the RNC’s total focus on one man—who is mortal, as the recent attempt on his life horrifyingly underlined—may prove precarious for the party.
This tumultuous month has shown that neither party has anything close to a playbook for replacing its torchbearer. It’s a moment when political operatives on both sides of the aisle might admit that they need a new model for succession. For that, they could look to the business world, and to corporate boards, where succession planning is an obsession.
The board's top job
To be sure, everyone can name a few companies where such plans haven’t panned out (see Disney and Starbucks). Still, companies at least have a structure—the board—to ensure that someone is scouting for tomorrow’s leaders, looking several layers into an organization or outside the company to find potential talent. Indeed, many company directors will tell you this is their main raison d’être, says Paroon Chadha, cofounder and CEO of OnBoard, a governance software company. In a recent poll of 6,000 boards, his company found that two-thirds said succession planning was their top priority.
Ted Dintersmith, a former venture capital investor and top Democratic Party donor, believes it’s time to bring some semblance of corporate-style governance to politics, to help protect U.S. democracy: “The political system needs to put itself on pause and say, ‘How can we embrace the principles that have made America’s economy so strong?’ ”
Having served on more than 50 boards in his career, he points out that directors are meant to check a CEO’s power and to deter and respond to unprofessional behavior. By comparison, Dintersmith adds, the leaders of political parties are rarely challenged by insiders. While each has aides and advisors, they are subordinate to their bosses and aren’t beholden to any broader constituency.
In a corporate setting, a board would likely have considered both Biden and Trump to be bad bets as leaders, he argues. Biden’s advanced age would put him in jeopardy, and Trump, who was found liable in a sexual abuse lawsuit, would never survive a decent board’s sniff test.
Corporate-style governance doesn’t always ensure a smooth succession process. Succession planning can get pushed off the agenda by more pressing matters, says Chadha, and it takes discipline to keep returning to a problem that doesn’t require an immediate solution.
But that advance work to find and groom a potential replacement can pay off massively when a successor is needed, following either a leader’s planned departure or an unplanned one.
The ego problem
Another common roadblock to replacing a CEO: It’s not easy to tell a powerful person that it’s time to let go, to find a new identity, and to watch someone else do their old job. “It’s a sensitive topic for the incumbent,” Chadha says.
This human problem is familiar to anyone who has been part of an agonizing discussion about an older person’s fitness—whether that person is a president, a business leader, or even a parent. And again, corporate boards have developed strategies to manage such moments.
Some set age limits for CEOs, making some transitions automatic. Many companies use the board-chair role as a soft landing for departing CEOs—allowing an important person to exert influence while making space for someone else to lead.
A similar kind of position could be created for departing presidents: a White House advisor, perhaps, or a high-level role at a party’s national committee. Given his 36 years in Congress and 12 years in two White House administrations, Biden could remain a guiding force in his party.
The Dutch management theorist Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries urges companies to create “beautiful exits” when it’s time for someone to leave. Longtime leaders may need coaching to envision that exit for themselves. “It’s hard for human beings to accept their own disintegration, so we go into all different kinds of defensive maneuvers,” he once told me—including clinging to power and to work.
The search goes on
As of this writing, it’s looking like Harris is poised to be Biden’s de facto successor, though other candidates may come forward. Dintersmith, who was among the donors who had been calling for Biden to leave the race and for the party to select a new nominee, says a competitive nominating process would be the smarter path, one that would more closely resemble corporate governance procedures.
“If the CEO decides to step down, they would say to the board, ‘I think my chief operating officer would be perfect for this, and I hope you give them every consideration,’ ” he explains. “They’d also say, ‘But I know you’re going to do your job and look at a full range of candidates before you make this choice.’ ”
A strong, competitive process benefits the organization and the successor no matter who is chosen, Dintersmith says.
Granted, time is short for the Democrats, but that can also be the case when a struggling firm needs a turnaround CEO. “The board might say: ‘With our reservoir of experience, it’s crystal clear this other person is perfect,’ ” Dintersmith says. “Or they might say, ‘Let’s do a search.’ ”
Finally, corporate boards wouldn’t see the party convention or even the election in November as the end of their process. When a new CEO takes over, boards immediately put together a succession plan for the next leadership change—to be reviewed periodically and adjusted as needed. That’s a task that both parties ought to take seriously come Nov. 5.
A version of this article appears in the Aug/Sept 2024 issue of Fortune, under the title "What American politics can learn about succession planning from American corporations."
