Charmain Bogue
Most boards start thinking seriously about CEO succession about twelve months before they need a new CEO. That's too late. By the time a transition is announced, you're already managing a crisis rather than a plan, and the organization is paying for the delay in ways that are difficult to quantify but impossible to miss.
Charmain Bogue of Washington, D.C. advises organizations at various stages of leadership transition, and the pattern she observes is consistent. Boards that wait tend to have a narrower pool of candidates, a shorter timeline to orient whoever they select, and a higher likelihood of choosing someone quickly under pressure rather than deliberately.
The Successor Is Often Already There
One of the most common findings in succession planning work is that the strongest internal candidate is frequently overlooked because they haven't been given the experiences that would make them visible. They've been effective in their current role, which means no one has moved them around or tested them in the situations that would signal readiness for the top role.
Boards often look externally when they feel internal candidates aren't ready, without asking the more important question: ready according to what criteria, and who is responsible for developing against those criteria? If the organization hasn't invested in developing the candidates it has, that's a leadership failure at the board level, not a talent scarcity problem.
What Succession Planning Actually Requires
Real succession planning isn't a list of names with a contingency attached. It's a continuous process that identifies the capabilities the organization will need from its next leader, assesses which potential successors have those capabilities or could develop them, and builds intentional experiences to close the gap. That work takes three to five years to do properly.
Bogue describes the organizations that do this well as having a different conversation at the board level: not "who would take over if something happened" but "what kind of leadership does this organization need in the next chapter, and are we developing people toward that." The second question is harder and requires the board to take a clear-eyed position on where the organization is headed.
When the Process Goes Wrong
The most damaging succession failures share a common feature: the departing CEO was too involved in selecting their successor, or not involved enough. Both extremes create problems. Too involved, and the successor is chosen for compatibility with the incumbent rather than fit for the future. Not involved enough, and institutional knowledge that would have helped the board make a better decision was never transferred.
Getting this balance right requires a board that is confident enough to lead the process and humble enough to use the departing CEO as a resource without letting them control the outcome. That's a governance skill, not a management one, and most boards have had to develop it without much training.
The organizations that handle CEO succession well do so because they've made it a continuous board responsibility rather than an emergency protocol. Charmain Bogue's advice to boards that want to improve is to start the process before it feels urgent. The best time to build succession readiness is when everything is going well, and that's also the time when it's hardest to prioritize, which is exactly why so few organizations do it.