Recipe #5: Building Your Leadership Team (Choosing Your Successor)
- Harry T. Jones
- 6 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Part 5 of the 7-week “Recipe for Executing a Succession Plan” series
Recently, I sat across from a founder who had just been blindsided.
His long-time business partner walked out the door.
Not quietly. Disloyal. Disruptive. And on the way out, he took something more valuable than clients or contracts.
He took the illusion that the leadership team was solid.
When the dust settled, this founder did something remarkable. Instead of patching the hole, he blew it up. He started over. And the very first thing the remaining leadership team did was begin each morning with a prayer, led by the CEO, with the people who were still standing.
It was a declaration: We are rebuilding on something that lasts.
That story is the foundation of Recipe #5. Because before you can choose a successor, you have to build the team from which that successor will emerge.
The Core Philosophy: Next Man Up
In football, “Next Man Up” means the team never skips a beat when a starter goes down. The backup is already trained.
Already informed.
Already ready.
Here is how it works in business:
Every leader must have a successor identified and kept informed on their responsibilities before that leader can be considered for a promotion.
No successor identified?
No promotion.
It sounds strict. But it removes the single greatest risk in any organization: the key person who cannot be replaced.
The Key Ingredients
✅ Trust and Radical Transparency: You cannot train a successor in the dark. Open the books. Share the hard conversations. Let them see the kitchen, not just the finished plate.
✅ Healthy Discourse: A leadership team that agrees on everything is not thinking — they are following. Build a culture where people can challenge ideas without fear.
✅ The Right People on the Bus: Use your core values as a filter. Ask the hard question: Do they fit our culture? Are they coachable where they fall short? If the answer is no to both, you already know what to do.
✅ The Right Seat: Good people must be in roles where they flourish. Tools like the Culture Index map a person’s natural wiring to the demands of the role. Kevin administered it to me recently. He snickered when he said he had the results. I am still waiting on that call.
✅ Accountability Systems: As my friend Doug Shierling puts it: “With the right expectations set (accountability system), and the managerial courage to follow it, poor employees will essentially fire themselves due to consistently missing the mark.”
Build the system. Then have the courage to let it work.
The Secret Sauce: Work Works
When evaluating future leaders, you should look at one thing above everything else: their track record with work.
Fresh out of college, I remember my first day in the fresh foods business. Working at a farmers market, I had been on a concrete floor from early morning until 6 o’clock at night. My feet were done. My boss walked over and said, “What are you doing tonight?”
I said I had no plans.
“Want to come to Florida with me?”
We left at 8:30 that night. Drove until 3 in the morning.
Sitting at the gates of the Tampa Farmer’s Market before they opened, third truck in line. Then it was citrus grove to citrus grove until we had loaded every single box that truck could carry. It was 6 p.m. when we pulled back into the market so the team could help us unload.
That is what I mean when I say work works.
When you are evaluating your next generation of leaders, look at when they started working and the kind of work they have done. A person’s relationship with hard work tells you more about their future than any interview question ever will.
The Transition: From Employee to Partner
Once you have identified the right people, the next question is: How do you keep them?
One engineering firm I know sets aside money annually as a down payment fund for future partners. Their equity committee meets with prospects for three consecutive years before inviting them to buy in. When ready, prospects put in their own money first — locking in the stock value — then earn options to buy more based on performance.
The result? Employees do not just feel like owners. They are owners.
As the late John Watson said: “The key is getting good partners with like values and a simple business. Most partnerships break up because one or more partners got greedy.”
Be as careful selecting a business partners as you are in choosing a spouse.
The “Last Day” Test
My friend Barry asks a question I have never forgotten:
“What if today is the last day you can walk into the office?”
What conversation would you have? What decision would you make?
If the honest answer is “everything would fall apart,” you do not have a leadership team yet. You have a dependency.
Recipe #5 is how you fix that.
Action Steps: Start Cooking This Week
✅ Map Your Bench: For every key leader, ask: Who is their identified successor? Are they being trained and kept informed? If not, close that gap now.
✅ Audit Your Seats: Are your best people in roles where they flourish? Match the right wiring to the right role.
✅ Build the Buy-In Path: Create a clear, structured path to equity. People protect what they own.
✅ Ask Barry’s Question: Sit down today and answer it honestly. Let that answer drive your next move. “What if today is the last day you can walk into the office?”
Next week: Recipe #6 – Structuring the Transition (The Handoff Plan)
P.S. We are on a mission to help 100 founders execute a succession plan and finish well. If you are ready to stop being the irreplaceable person in your business and start building the team that carries your legacy forward, we have two spots available in our Finishing Well Breakthrough Groups. Click here to learn more.
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