Leadership Succession - Publications - Faculty & Research

05 Sep 2012
News

Are Firms Neglecting Succession Plans?

September 2013
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Laurent Adamowicz and Bon'App

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Juliane Calingo Schwetz and Patricia Bissett Higgins

After a successful career as Chairman and CEO of Paris-based luxury food company Fauchon, Laurent Adamowicz sought to reduce obesity and improve health outcomes. Adamowicz created a mobile application to provide consumers with more accessible and interpretable... View Details

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Article

A Head Start on Succession

By: Joseph L. Bower

Our studies of CEO succession over the past several years have shown some improvements in the trends in CEO turnover, often resulting from outside pressures for improved oversight and better corporate governance. The next step in improving CEO succession—and ultimately... View Details

Keywords: Investment Return; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership Development; Management Practices and Processes; Management Succession; Management Teams; Business and Shareholder Relations

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November 2015 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Cisco Systems: In Search of the Next CEO

By: Boris Groysberg, Sarah L. Abbott, Olivia Hull and J. Yo-Jud Cheng

It’s August 2014 and John Chambers is expected to announce his retirement after 17 years as CEO of global technology giant Cisco Systems. Under Chambers’s leadership, Cisco has grown from $2.2 billion in annual revenues and under 4,000 employees to revenues of $46... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Succession Planning; CEO Succession; Managing Change; Person-organization Fit; Management Succession; Transition; Talent and Talent Management; Change Management; Retirement; Innovation Leadership; Recruitment; Corporate Governance; Experience and Expertise; Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States; San Jose; California

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22 Sep 2014
News

Boards Are Terrible at Their Most Important Job

Keywords: boards; CEO succession; leadership

06 Jun 2016
Research & Ideas

Skills and Behaviors that Make Entrepreneurs Successful

serial entrepreneurs versus first-time founders. “We’ve always had a hard time being able to identify the skills and behaviors of entrepreneurial leaders,” says HBS Professor Lynda Applegate, who has spent 20 years studying leadership... View Details

Keywords: by HBS Working Knowledge

May 2016
Article

'Both/And' Leadership

By: Wendy K. Smith, Marianne Lewis and Michael Tushman

Leaders face a multitude of strategic paradoxes—contradictory pressures that are too often viewed as "either/or" choices. There are innovation paradoxes, in which the pursuit of new offerings and processes conflicts with the mandate to sustain the tried and... View Details

Keywords: Conflict of Interests; Goals and Objectives; Business Processes

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Research Summary

Transition Leadership

Michael Watkins is developing frameworks, programs, and e-performance tools for helping leaders to take charge in new senior management roles. New leaders' actions during their first few months on the job have a disproportionate impact on their ultimate success or... View Details

February 2011
Case

Rebecca S. Halstead: Steadfast Leadership

By: Boris Groysberg and Deborah Bell

Reviews Rebecca Halstead's career history, detailing how, through her personal attributes, skills, experiences, challenges, and organizational practices she developed into a successful leader and commander in the U.S. Army. The case profiles her leadership style and... View Details

Keywords: Working Conditions; Groups and Teams; Competitive Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Organizational Culture; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Gender; Power and Influence

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01 Mar 2008
News

Avoiding a Succession Crisis

The rapid changes at Merrill Lynch and Citigroup highlight the problem many firms face as they consider succession. What we are seeing should be surprising and disturbing to us all: At investment banks of great importance, the board of directors has decided to change... View Details

Keywords: Joseph L. Bower; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

03 Oct 2023
News

Do Leaders Learn More From Success or Failure?

Program

Program for Leadership Development

Summary Innovative companies know that long-term success requires a pipeline of visionary leaders who can help build and secure a competitive edge. The Program for Leadership Development (PLD) prepares... View Details

04 May 2020
News

Your CEO Succession Plan Can’t Wait

01 Dec 2013
News

Success Through Shared Effort

With donations totaling $1.77 million, the MBA Class of 2003 set a new 10th Reunion giving record last spring. "The most important catalyst for giving was leadership at the section level," says Carolyn Wolff Dorros, who served as reunion... View Details

Keywords: reunions; donations

27 Aug 2019
News

A Shot at Success

Fieldhouse with thousands of people waiting for you to fail. So when she returned to the University of Kansas for a reunion in 2014, Feickert expected to hear similar stories of success from her teammates and other friends who had been... View Details

Keywords: April White

01 Sep 2013
News

Authentic Leadership

their own leadership style and determine their inner compass. They are invited to draw up a contract establishing norms and confidentiality, allowing for openness about vulnerabilities as they share their life stories and confront... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

08 Mar 2016
News

Leadership tips from ancient Rome

27 Jul 2021
News

Building Successful Hybrid Teams

05 Nov 2007
What Do You Think?

Why Is Succession So Badly Managed?

Summing Up Should CEO succession processes be certified? Respondents to this month's column agree that CEO succession is badly managed, perhaps accounting in large part for the fact that few "inside... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

July 2023
Case

Schuberg Philis: From Success to Significance

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Daniela Beyersdorfer

The founders of Dutch professional services firm Schuberg Philis, and the new leadership team entrusted with the day-to-day management, must set the path forward in 2019. The company has grown into a €70 million revenue strong IT provider with top ranks in the... View Details