Leadership: Preparing to Relinquish Command

December 3, 2025

Leadership: Preparing to Relinquish Command

Robert H. Gains | 2024

Abstract

Many companies, large and small, neglect to pay ample consideration to their internal leadership pipelines and succession processes. The turnover of leadership positions happens almost perfunctorily. Missing or weak succession practices result in excessive turnover among senior executives and propagate substantial value annihilation for companies and their major shareholders. In-house preparation of promising executives/leaders can create consequences beyond avoiding costly interregnums. By placing impending successors in charge of new developments, companies can increase the speed of change and assess the nominee’s appropriateness for the executive/leadership position. The leader’s ability to develop trust by allowing potential successors to take on increased responsibility starts with the leader-follower relationship.

The Leadership:Preparing to Relinquish Command Curriculum is designed as a framework that provides future leaders, leaders and followers with tools, techniques, and strategies to establish successful leader-follower relationships that lead to effective succession planning in the event of the leader’s timely or untimely demise. In the course, The curriculum covers the following areas: leadership theory and practice, leadership challenges, strategic foresight, scenario planning, strategic leadership, building a learning organization, full-range leadership development, leading cross-culturally, Human resources development, and succession planning. The subject areas highlight the importance of each prism that will help prepare an organization’s leadership, followers, or students for an effective succession plan.

The curriculum aims to develop and facilitate a college or university 12-week leadership course that prepare students in practical leadership principles and theory that will promote and establish a learning culture throughout the organization. The curriculum goal is to inspire leaders and current students to develop a training system that motivates followers to seek opportunities for advancement and distinguish themselves as potential successors. The curriculum consists of three four-week phases that provide students/participants with essential leadership and leadership development lessons, examining theory, style, followership, strategic leadership, organizational learning, and succession planning. The curriculum will provide engaging experiential learning activities that will be applicable at every level of leadership. The course provides the presenter(s) with the lesson objectives, instruction method, and example discussion questions.

The curriculum is intended for a college or university setting but can be tailored for a business or church workshop setting.

Keywords: Succession planning, perfunctorily, leadership, interregnum, continuum

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