Leadership Style and Succession Planning

The main aim of the chapter is to identify the leadership style that promotes succession planning through the existence of leadership development practices within organizations. The middle and top leaders are very important to identify and develop new leaders within the organization. The authors reach three main conclusions: 1) The laissez-faire leadership style is related to the succession planning. Succession planning is positively influenced by leaders that adopt a passive leadership style. 2) There are some practices of leadership development that are related to the existence of succession planning in organizations. 3) The 360º feedback and coaching/executive coaching are related to the succession planning. These practices promote the human capital development, so it is assumed that succession planning may be related to the leader development. Theoretically they concluded that organizations should have a leadership pipeline in order to prepare leaders to assume leadership positions.