By Manfred Ket de Vries
Succession Planning: two words that can drain the color from a CEO’s face faster than a plunging stock price. While it’s universally acknowledged as important — essential, even — few leaders approach the subject with genuine enthusiasm. Fewer still manage to do it well. Despite the polished PowerPoint decks, glossy consultant reports, and “strategic vision” binders, succession planning often strays from the realm of rational process into something far messier: a psychological soap opera.
That’s because succession is not just about timing and organisational strategy, it cuts to the core of human psychology. It touches identity, mortality, power, and legacy. For many leaders, stepping down is not simply a career move; it’s experienced as an existential blow. When one’s self-worth is deeply entwined with the role, succession can feel like a narcissistic injury. It is viewed not as a transition, but a symbolic dethroning. Naming a successor signals decline, evoking unconscious fears of aging, irrelevance, and even death. And the result is resistance — whether through subtle sabotage, perfectionistic expectations no successor can meet, or simply avoidance of the topic altogether.
Meanwhile, the stakes couldn’t be higher. When succession planning is vague or avoided, uncertainty seeps into the organisation. Internal competition intensifies. People start reading tea leaves, jockeying for position, currying favor with perceived frontrunners, and forging quiet alliances. A rumour-driven atmosphere takes hold. Political infighting surfaces. Turf wars erupt. Sabotage, sometimes covert, sometimes blatant, can begin to fester.
And then there’s the problem of golden handcuffs. Lavish compensation packages, symbolic power, and the prestige of leadership can keep a CEO tethered to the role well beyond their peak effectiveness. Even when it’s time to step aside, doing so can feel like surrendering not just power but identity.
Furthermore, succession anxiety doesn’t belong to the outgoing leader alone. The potential successors also carry heavy psychological burdens. They may feel the weight of comparison to a revered predecessor, triggering self-doubt or the impostor syndrome. If they’re still in contention for the role, they often must navigate complex interpersonal terrain — shifting loyalties, unspoken rivalries, and simmering resentment from peers.
Hence, at its worst, a poorly handled succession process doesn’t just bruise egos, it destabilises the entire organisation. Morale drops. Key talent departs. Strategic momentum falters. What should be a moment of renewal and continuity instead becomes a source of confusion, dysfunction, and decline.
One other common expression of this psychological bind can be shadow leadership: the outgoing leader refusing to fully let go, lingering in advisory roles, quietly second-guessing decisions, and maintaining unofficial influence. And it’s not always malicious. It is often driven by unconscious attachment to relevance, identity, and control.
Ultimately, succession isn’t just an organisational issue, it’s a deeply intrapersonal and intersubjective process, shaped by unconscious drives, emotional defences, and developmental residues. A psychoanalytic lens reveals that unless these forces are acknowledged and addressed, succession planning remains less about future leadership — and more about managing unresolved psychic conflict in the present.
“Kill the bastard”
To be fair, not every CEO approaches succession like a deer caught in existential headlights. Some plan ahead, relinquish power with grace, and ease into a contented retirement playing golf or writing unsolicited autobiographies. But for many, the psychological terrain is far messier, riddled with unconscious sabotage, power anxiety, and a touch of Shakespearean drama. In this slow-burning narrative, the departing CEO often struggles the most with letting go. As one executive half-joked to a friend, “The most important task of a CEO is to identify his likely successor — and kill the bastard.” But with that in mind, how does the succession process get quietly stifled or derailed?
Unconscious sabotage
One of the most insidious challenges in succession planning is unconscious sabotage when leaders, often unknowingly, become obstacles to a smooth transition. It’s important to be clear: most aren’t intentionally trying to derail the process. Their resistance is usually subtle, indirect, and rooted in psychological dynamics they may not even be aware of.
Some leaders genuinely believe they are preparing the organisation for the future. Yet, beneath that intention lies unacknowledged discomfort, the fear of letting go, the loss of identity, or anxiety about being replaced. These emotions can quietly distort behaviour. One moment, leaders may be championing a promising new executive, but the next, they’re subtly undermining that individual’s credibility in the boardroom. They may micromanage, withhold key opportunities, or second-guess decisions — not out of malice, but out of a deep, often unspoken reluctance to relinquish control.
This kind of resistance frequently manifests as a failure to invest in internal talent. Leadership development gets deprioritised. High-potential individuals remain unmentored. And by the time succession becomes urgent, the organisation is left scrambling — unprepared, uncertain, and exposed.
Unconscious sabotage doesn’t usually look dramatic. More often, it shows up in hesitation, avoidance, or a quiet pattern of undercutting those poised to lead next. And unless those underlying psychological drivers are brought into awareness, even well-meaning leaders may unknowingly stand in the way of the very future they hope to secure.
Denial of death
Beneath many succession struggles lies a deeper, often unspoken force: anxiety about death. Death, the stealth motivator, is always in the room. This anxiety fuels a familiar psychological pattern: the denial of mortality, or its executive equivalent, the fantasy of eternal tenure.
A telling anecdote captures this dynamic. When the late German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s grandson told him he wanted to be a chancellor too, Adenauer shot back, “That’s impossible, there can’t be two of us!” Joke or not, the remark reveals a fundamental truth: succession isn’t just about professional transition, it’s about confronting impermanence.
For some leaders, thinking about a successor feels like drafting their own obituary. Succession planning becomes emotionally fraught because it surfaces fears of aging, irrelevance, and being forgotten. As a result, leaders may cling to power and sidestep difficult conversations. And this discomfort often leads to a collective silence. If the CEO avoids the topic, others follow suit. After all, who wants to be the one to suggest the emperor start preparing for life after the throne?
The problem is even worse with founder-CEOs. For them, the company isn’t just a job. It’s an extension of self, a monument to their vision, their persistence, their quirks. Talking about succession? That’s practically sacrilege.
Take the case of a publishing company whose founder-president suffered a stroke. Even after this wake-up call, talk of succession remained off-limits. Board members, mostly loyal friends, tiptoed around the topic, afraid of triggering his legendary temper. Only after a second, more severe stroke, when the president could no longer function, did the company scramble to respond. By then it was too late. With no clear successor, the company fell into chaos and was eventually sold off at a loss.
The legacy complex
For many leaders, being remembered offers a kind of immortality. Their legacy — a landmark building, a defining policy, a quirky mission statement, is a way to remain present, even after they’ve left the stage. But this preoccupation, whether conscious or not, can turn succession into a threat.
Unfortunately, leaders overly focused on shaping how they’ll be remembered often delay succession, holding on just long enough to “finish” or carefully script their legacy. They may be haunted by the fear that their successor will undo everything they’ve built. They fear that their work will be undone or forgotten.
What if the cherished legacy is tossed aside in favour of a shiny new strategy? Worse still, what if the next leader actually outshines them? It’s no surprise that some outgoing leaders cope by secretly hoping their successor stumbles. Others take more deliberate steps to ensure it.
One common tactic? Choosing a clone — someone who thinks, acts, and even dresses like the departing CEO. Selecting a successor in their own image may feel like a way to preserve the legacy. At a deeper level, it may also reflect an unconscious desire to retain control or diminish the threat of being replaced.
But this strategy often backfires. Clones rarely bring the fresh thinking, adaptability, or creative risk-taking that an organisation in a rapidly changing environment needs. A leadership style or strategy that worked a decade ago may now feel outdated — no matter how nostalgically “on brand” it seems.
The illusion of equality: everyone’s special (but no one’s the chosen one)
Another reason succession planning stirs anxiety is the threat it poses to group harmony. Boards and executive teams often worry about upsetting delicate power dynamics, leading them to delay or sidestep the process entirely. Leaders, too, may foster a culture where everyone feels equally valued even when that’s more myth than reality. But naming a successor punctures that illusion. Suddenly, one person becomes more equal than the rest.
That’s when things get awkward. Appointing a successor can stir feelings of favouritism, exclusion, and even betrayal. It risks bruised egos, fractured loyalties, and the unraveling of long-standing team cohesion. For some leaders, the emotional fallout from choosing just one person feels more uncomfortable than putting the decision off altogether.
The result? Avoidance disguised as diplomacy. Leaders procrastinate, succession discussions remain vague, and “successor pools” quietly rotate without resolution. Everyone is technically still in the running, which means no one is truly prepared. And when the moment of transition finally comes, the organisation is left without clarity or a clear next leader.
King Lear revisited
Succession planning can easily take on Shakespearean proportions. In King Lear, the aging monarch’s well-meaning attempt to divide his kingdom ends in betrayal, madness, and death. For modern leaders, the consequences may be less fatal, but the emotional stakes are just as real.
Once a successor is named, the balance of power inevitably begins to shift. People start currying favor with the heir apparent. Loyalties blur. Influence recalibrates. The outgoing leader may suddenly feel like a guest in their own empire — present, but no longer central.
When a leader’s identity is tightly bound to their role, stepping down can feel like a profound loss: of self, of purpose, of relevance. Letting go of authority doesn’t just mean handing over responsibilities, it can feel like surrendering agency. The fear of being sidelined, forgotten, or rendered obsolete often lurks just beneath the surface, making the transfer of power not just difficult, but deeply destabilising.
Consider the CEO of a successful supermarket chain. At the board’s urging, he brought in an outsider to run a major division — a potential successor. This new executive was efficient, decisive, and, heaven forbid, also popular. Profits surged. Praise followed. The CEO, once confident in his choice, began to sour. Eventually, he persuaded the board to push the rising star out, citing cultural misalignment and executive turnover.
Beneath the rationale? Old-fashioned envy. The new guy had taken over the narrative, and the CEO wanted it back.
The process of succession: the excuses file
When succession planning stalls, it rarely does so quietly. More often, it’s accompanied by a familiar chorus of justifications: “There’s no one ready.” “We’re still evaluating candidates.” “Our managers need more experience.” Or the perennial favourite: “Now’s just not the right time.”
Beneath these surface explanations, deeper anxieties often stir. As uncertainty mounts, a variety of psychological defence mechanisms come into play: denial (“I still have much unfinished business”), rationalisation (“No one is ready yet”), projection (blaming others for not stepping up), and devaluation (dismissing potential successors as unqualified or “not a good fit”). Each mechanism serves the same purpose — to protect the incumbent’s identity and sense of indispensability — while quietly sabotaging the organisation’s future continuity.
On the surface, these excuses sound reasonable — and occasionally, they are. But more often, they serve as polite veneers for something more difficult to name. Beneath the logistical delays lies a deeper psychological resistance. Succession planning, after all, isn’t just a practical task, it’s a symbolic reckoning.
At an unconscious level, it represents a form of symbolic castration: the perceived loss of power, control, and relevance. For the person in charge, it forces a confronting question: What happens to me when I’m no longer at the center? Because planning for succession doesn’t just mean preparing the organisation’s future, it means imagining one’s own exit, one’s own replacement, and the unsettling possibility that someone else might be just as effective, perhaps even more so.
That’s why succession planning, while framed as a strategic imperative, so often falters at a deeply human level. Not because of a lack of talent, but because of a reluctance to face what stepping aside actually implies.
Naming a successor isn’t just a logistical move, it’s a symbolic act. It signals that the current leader is no longer the future. It invites comparison. It raises the terrifying possibility that someone else might do the job better.
For some leaders, having a successor “waiting in the wings” is energising. It sparks mentorship, long-term vision, and legacy thinking. For others, it feels like a countdown, a quiet erosion of status and significance.
That’s why real succession planning requires more than strategy decks and organisational charts. It requires emotional honesty. Until the psychological undercurrents — fear, loss, rivalry, irrelevance — are named and addressed, the planning process will continue to stall, hidden behind increasingly sophisticated excuses.
So, what’s a CEO to do?
First, acknowledge the psychological weight of succession. It’s not just a strategic milestone. It is a deeply personal reckoning. It touches on mortality, legacy, identity, and control. To step aside is to face the question: Who am I without this role? That question alone can trigger a swirl of unconscious defences — denial, avoidance, rivalry, even grief. But naming these feelings doesn’t weaken leadership; it strengthens it.
Second, don’t go it alone. Succession should never be a solo act. It’s a systemic process that requires shared responsibility. Boards must be more than passive observers; they need to be proactive stewards of leadership continuity. That means regularly assessing internal and external talent, building robust development pipelines, and rewarding CEOs not for clinging to power, but for cultivating it in others. A healthy board culture makes it easier for leaders to let go — not because they’re being pushed out, but because they’ve helped build what comes next.
The best organisations normalise succession. It is an institutionalised process. It is part of the organisation’s DNA. They start the conversation early and revisit it often. They don’t treat it as an emergency protocol triggered by illness or scandal, but as a natural leadership rhythm. These companies embrace the idea that leadership is a temporary role, not a permanent identity. That perspective softens the ego blow and reframes succession as a contribution to the organisation’s long-term story, not an erasure from it.
Psychologically mature leaders understand this well. They learn to keep generational envy in check, resisting the pull to diminish rising talent. They don’t flinch when others shine. Instead, they celebrate it, recognising that true legacy isn’t just about being remembered, but about who and what you leave behind. They do not live by Gore Vidal’s famously bitter line: “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” If anything, they flip it on its head.
In the end, succession isn’t just about relinquishing authority, it’s about passing it wisely. It’s not only about who comes next, but whether the people in charge of the organisation have done the emotional and organisational work to prepare for it. And, just as importantly, whether they have prepared themselves for what comes after the curtain falls.
Because real leadership isn’t measured by how tightly they hold on to power, but by how wisely and generously they release it. The true mark of great leadership isn’t their continued dominance, but the strength, clarity, and confidence of the people who come next.
In the end, the legacy of leaders isn’t what they built alone — it’s what endures without them. And great leadership is reflected not in how long they stay at the top, but in how well their successors rise to meet the future.