When illness strikes: Leadership Succession

It's a terrible thing to loose a beloved leader. I know this from first hand experience during my military career. It takes a strong organizational culture to continue at the same peak levels when the death of a leader occurs.

The glue that holds it together are the organizaiton's values. As long as the leader who succeeds continues to live, model and exhibit the values of the organization, their transition will be relatively smooth.

Here are some suggestions for helping to get through this difficult time:

• Acknowledge the passing leaders contributions and provide examples of how they modeled the organization's values.
• Reassure personnel that those values live on with the organization.
• Provide personnel with an immediate example of how you will execute a project, task or mission with the same values.
• When employees feel they share the same values with executives and senior leaders, difficult times can be overcome. In the end, everyone is better for it.