We are trying to build internal succession pathways so our managers can step up as we scale, but our current leadership team members are protective of their duties and fail to mentor their direct reports, creating a talent bottleneck. How do we get our leadership team to actively develop their successors?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Developing the next layer of leadership is a critical responsibility of every executive on your team. If your leadership team members are hoarding tasks and failing to mentor their direct reports, they are creating a single point of failure that will severely devalue your company during an eventual exit.

To break this bottleneck, you must make leadership development an explicit expectation of their seat. In the EOS® system, every leader must perform LMA™, which stands for Leading, Managing, and Accountability. LMA™ is not a secondary task; it is a core role on your Accountability Chart. A leader who fails to develop their people is failing at LMA™.

Add succession development to your leadership team's quarterly Rocks. For example, a leader's Rock could be to document their core processes and delegate two primary responsibilities to a direct report.

Use your weekly Level 10 Meetings™ to track their progress. If they resist delegating or claim their team is not ready, use the IDS® process to find the root cause. Is it a training issue, or is the leader insecure about their own value?

By holding your executives accountable to their LMA™ responsibilities, you build a healthy, self-sustaining organization. This not only frees up your leadership team to focus on high-level scaling but also proves to potential buyers that your business has a deep bench of talent ready to carry the company forward.