adminhuge following which becomes the instant source of their political power.
But history shows that as these popular movements mature, some of them have tended to revolve around the personalities of their founder leaders risking the sustainability of the movements after the death of the founders. As popular political movements mutate to become political parties that may have the responsibility to run a government, it is imperative that they have clear succession planning processes in place in order to avoid falling into oblivion or becoming extinct with the death of founder members. They must be able to renew themselves for posterity’s sake.
Popular political movements start “big” because they are able to capture the imagination of the majority of people by articulating their aspirations. Now when there is lack of, or deliberate avoidance of succession planning in the movement, ordinary members become anxious about the future of the movement and will start to drift away from the party finding new political homes elsewhere.
Popular movements also lose members when disillusioned followers begin to view the movement as serving the leadership’s personal interests at the expense of those of the people as mandated.
Leaders in the movement who fail to acknowledge this paradigm shift will deludingly become agitated depicting the shift as betrayal, and given the chance, are ready to inflict punishment on the “fugitives” accusing them of treachery.
Succession planning can be defined as a dynamic, ongoing process of systematically identifying, assessing, and developing leadership talent to meet future needs of an organisation and ensure its sustainability (Kimball, 2005). It is a proactive attempt to mitigate the effects of planned and unplanned departure of people in key positions.
Succession planning in political organisations focuses on three main areas:
- To help a political party to prepare for an unexpected event such as the sudden illness or death of a person in a key leadership role;
- To address the needs of the party for growth and continuity as senior leadership ages and retires and
- To ensure that the party has the right people in place to function at their best both now and in the future.
As one writer puts it: “Succession planning is about putting the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats”.
Change sometimes is inevitable, and when political parties fail to embrace change, they will themselves be consumed by the change. One of the greatest challenges facing many political parties in the country is how to put in place well designed leadership change processes without compromising organisational continuity, and diminishing the party’s support base. Political parties are experiencing a leadership transition crisis in the absence of implementable and functional succession plans for their future.
However, political wisdom demonstrates that the ability of a political party to survive is based on the party’s capacity to produce sustained and high quality leaders over time. The Sadc region has a number of good examples of popular movements-cum-political parties that have managed to sustain their existence and have remained popular with the people because they periodically renew themselves through clear leadership succession plans.
Leadership renewal ensures organisational sustainability, and responsiveness in the face of increasing uncertainties and changing expectations of the electorate.
Political parties should take a leaf from the military in the country which over the years has shown that it has considerable experience and expertise with succession planning. What has become clear with the “boys in camouflage” is that in the event of the Defence Forces Commander retiring, or leaving office because of some other reasons, the leadership in the military knows exactly who will take over and how that appointment is made.
The sudden death of a key political leader if not properly handled in terms of succession will reverberate throughout the nation, paralysing party leadership and threatening the nation’s sovereignty.
Political parties cannot afford to passively wait for the future. They must proactively create the future of their parties by investing time, and deep thought towards succession planning.
When organisations are formed many people’s lives become dependent on them, and allowing the demise of such organisations through the death of their leaders is against the basic principle of human sanctity and the need to preserve human life through care.
The most important feature for a successful succession plan is the commitment of top leadership towards the cause. Few members can develop their potential without party support, and that begins right at the top. All successful political parties the world over are engaged in a considerable effort of mentoring and coaching those with the ability to takeover top posts in the parties.
Allowing free debate on succession planning promotes internal democracy that will ensure party members can ultimately coalesce on those with the right stamina to run the party in future.
While party leaders come and go, how they come and go has a profound effect on the party and largely determines the ability of the party to exist after they are gone. Leaders who fail the process of succession set their parties on a path to extinction. Party leaders should not only speak about succession planning, they must walk the talk by making sure that they deliberately put in motion leadership change processes that preserve their parties. A party leader has an obligation to take personal action to groom a leader who will take over from him or her when leadership change becomes inevitable.
It is because of the absence of clear succession policies in some political parties that incumbents end up having a hard time accepting that their time is nigh. As a result, transitions become brutal and not smooth as they should be. And because of poor succession planning, political schemers and charlatans stealthily spring up to shower the incumbent with endless praises while at the same time positioning themselves and their allies to take over the reigns of power.
Succession planning ensures that parties become aware of the political realities on the ground, and will recognise and overcome uncouth political schemers in their midst.
- Bradwell Mhonderwa is the Managing Consultant of Business Ethics Centre, a Corporate Governance and Business Ethics Management firm. For feedback email [email protected]
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