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Welcome the New Guard

Write a Letter to Your Successor

ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING things any leader can do is to take on a new role, be it in your current organization or in a new company. It’s invigorating to apply your leadership skills in a new situation, develop relationships with new people, and craft a fresh strategy for a different set of challenges. Talk about development! Every manager should have the chance to move through a series of new challenges; in fact, that’s what a career is all about—tackling a collection of different experiences.

When your chance comes to move on, there are a couple of things you should do before you leave your current role. One of them is to say thank you to everyone who has helped to make you successful. Do this in two ways: First, take the time to personally reach out to those who made a difference in your work life. Then, follow up with a handwritten note (a lost art these days) on attractive, professional stationary. The handwritten note is a classy gesture and reflects well on your leadership brand. The other thing you need to do, of course, is to prepare your successor. Be sure to brief this person on the team’s strengths and opportunities as well as the key performance goals and challenges facing your group.

Hopefully, this is not a last-minute process because you’ve groomed your own successor. However, many times, a clear successor is not available—and even if there is one, sometimes you only have a day or two before starting the new assignment. In that case, there is a time-honored technique you can use to transfer critical information to the next leader.

Write a Letter to Your Successor

Writing a letter to your successor is a tradition that has its historical roots in military and political change-of-command scenarios. The idea is to leave a document that outlines your assessment of the situation and maybe even offers a few suggestions for immediate next steps. That way, the new leader doesn’t walk in completely cold to the situation without a sense of the team dynamics, recent production developments, and so forth. Whenever you leave a leadership position, use this technique to leave your successor something to absorb about your team’s current state of affairs. However, because this is about your development right now, we’re going to borrow the “letter to your successor” concept as a way to sharpen your leadership today. In other words, if you implement this technique as a developmental exercise, you can use it to guide your own leadership agenda over the next several months. Here’s how it works.

What Would You Do if You Were Staying?

First of all, take this process seriously, and treat it as if it were a real situation. Pretend that you’re moving to a new role, and that you only have a day to transition your successor. You don’t feel you have enough time to give away all your thoughts and ideas after a long day, so you’ve decided to write a letter to capture your final recommendations. Start the letter to your imaginary successor by listing in bullet format your impressions of the team’s strengths and opportunities. Keep the lists brief; limit them to five to eight key strengths and three to four relevant opportunities.

Following this summary of the team’s strengths and opportunities, write a top-ten list of the things you would recommend be done in the next ninety days. Title the list: “Ten Things I Would Do if I Were Staying in the Role.” Note, this is not a new leader assimilation list; you’re not giving the traditional “get out and meet your team members” type of advice. This list is just what it sounds like: a list of the actions you would take next if you were staying in the job. When I left AOL, I remember writing this exact letter to my successor, Linda Simon, and it felt really good to express in writing what I wanted to see happen to the group I was leaving. I was bold, too—I included ideas in that letter that even I hadn’t tried yet, hoping Linda would find a way to implement them. It was quite liberating, actually, to have a say in how the team would move forward after I was gone. I think Linda appreciated the letter; I know for certain that she led the team to new heights over the next few years.

Your top-ten list should include the items that need to be tackled in the next three months. Make these items actionable; while it’s OK to be provocative, make sure the ideas or suggestions can actually be implemented. Flesh out these ideas and be bold—this is your chance to write a new blueprint for yourself, a new leadership agenda.

Although this is a “pretend exercise,” you can use it to make real, positive change happen; pretend you’re the new manager coming in to lead the group, and take this opportunity to chart a new course of action. I recommend you do this exercise once a year; I used to do it in late December as I was looking ahead to the new year. Similar to Jimmy Stewart’s character in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, who was given a second chance, you’re giving yourself a second chance to lead this group. What are you going to do with that opportunity?

Bootstrap Takeaways

Write a Letter to Your Successor

1. Use this exercise to recharge your agenda: Where are your key leverage points? What would you do if you were starting in the role today?

2. Put your leadership innovation cap on: What needs shaking up? What needs a new approach?

3. Be bold but realistic. Make meaningful leadership moves, designed to get your team going or challenge them in new ways.