Human resources management: Article review Rachid Hassini

LYNN, D, B (2001), Succession management strategies in public sector organizations Building Leadership Capital, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Vol. 21, No. 2 2001, pp 114-132

Brief summary of the research article

Increasing turbulence in the public sector environment, characterized by organizational restructuring, funding uncertainties, and increasing program complexities, has substantial effects on the ways public sector organizations respond to leadership replacement. Succession planning is a critical leadership tool for ensuring organizational growth and continuity by eliminating substantial gaps in institutional knowledge, and leadership through strategic placement of key personnel. One of the greatest challenges facing many public sector organizations is how to affect a well designed change of leadership while maintaining organizational continuity and meeting organizational goals and citizens expectations. Some researchers suggest that many organizations will experience a leadership transition crisis in the absence of the implementation of a well designed, functional succession plan for the future. In this context, the purpose of Lynns paper is to examine the leadership concept of succession planning and discuss theories and United States public agencies practices and their relationship to the succession planning process. The authors preceded a literature review of session management in private sector organizations and public sector organizations. The author also used focus groups for detailed information and enabler for the collection of information from participants involved in the development of leadership talent in their respective organizations. The focus group approach enabled participants to provide insights into the complexity of the succession management process, as well as to discuss the readiness of their organizations to identify and nurture the next generation of leaders. According to his finding the extent of research on succession management in the public sector has been less comprehensive than the private sector one (less than 30 articles in the area over the
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past 40 years in public sector context and more than 150 in relationship with private sector context). The paper highlighted important dimensions critical to succession planning as a leadership development tool, this includes evaluating the future needs of the organization, the identification and development of leadership talent, and the ability to identify and implement results. Having considered the extant literature and noticing the lack of public sector research in the field, the author shifts its focus to redressing how public sector leaders view succession management strategies and the potential usefulness of such a process in identifying, developing, and enabling leadership growth in their organizations. In fact, in this article the researcher point out that there are many challenges facing the public sector in regard to developing and selecting leaders within United States federal agencies. According to him in at least 12 states, the recruitment and utilization of highly qualified individuals has involved the establishment of a senior executive personnel system. Nevertheless, such systems are not effective. This is due to internal barriers to leadership development in the public sector: organizational culture, low priority, insufficient resources, inadequate rewards for initiative/risk, limited mobility, and lack of role models. Besides the above reasons, the traditional view of the public personnel management system is centered on the concept of a merit-based civil service explains in part the hesitancy of public HRM managers and the leadership of their organizations to support programs that identify preselected replacements for positions. The paper also concluded that the pace of succession management is often considered too slow and too likely to fail in the long-term to produce candidates with the capabilities to lead. This can
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also lead to the loss of top candidates who move elsewhere or to the escalation of frustration among internal candidates passed over in favor of external hires. Personal opinions, comments and criticisms In order to discuss my personnel comment on the studied article, I succession planning is defined as a proactive attempt to ensure that leadership in an organization will be continuous by identifying how these positions will be filled as both planned and unplanned departures occur (Schmalzried, H., & Fallon, L.F. (2007). Succession planning for local health department top executives: Reducing risk to communities. Journal of Community Health 32(3), 169-180, p. 169). From this definition we can conclude the core aspects of SHRM are: the importance given to the integration of HRM into the business and corporate strategy, and the devolvement of HRM to line managers instead of personnel specialists. But in this article the author didnt focus on the importance of SHRM as a tool to ensure a smooth succession management. SHRM strategies focus is on alignment of the organizations HR practices, policies and programmes with strategic business plans. Strategic HRM thus links organizations strategy and HRM, and emphasizes the integration of HR with the business and its environment. Besides this, the methodology used in this article doesnt allow future researchers to use his findings in other context. These results are related to the studied agencies and cannot be easily applied to other public organizations especially outside the United States context. I also think that from the perspective of HRM public organizations practitioners; even if this article highlighted some obstacles and barriers to effective succession management it didnt give

valuable practical recommendation in the way to deal with these issues in public administration context in different cultural environment. Practical applications in regard with the Tunisian public administration context Referring to my reading and work experience, to achieve outstanding results an organization must develop an effective and highly focused strategy that centers on three main areas. First, it addresses the needs of the organization as senior leadership ages and retires. Second, helps an organization prepare for an unexpected event such as the sudden illness or death of a person in a key leadership role in the organization. Finally, ensures that an organization has the right personnel in place to function at peak efficiency both now and in the future. This strategy can serve as a means to take an organizational inventory of human capital and better identify existing or future gaps. In my country Tunisia, I think that the barriers to leadership development discussed in Lynns article apply to the Tunisian public sector. There are obstacles to taking public sector succession efforts seriously, especially confusion over replacement versus positioning, and a lack of planning techniques in the face of political and other constraints. Other challenges include the highly hierarchical structure prevalent in many Tunisian public sector organizations. Furthermore, there are often gaps between the strategies of succession planning and the reality of its practice in our civil service. Finally, the potential for highly political appointments as a compensation for political affiliation and the possible appointment of external candidates create frustration and undermine the overall success of succession plans. Whatever the approach to be used, the basic steps of succession planning are almost always similar, based Rubin, D.K., Powers, M.B., & Illia, T. (2007), ( Succession plans are new priority
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because, Ready or not, the futures coming. ENR: Engineering News-Record, 259 (12), 26-29) there are six basic steps of succession planning: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Establish knowledge, skills, and abilities needed at each leadership level, Identify a pool of qualified candidates for various leadership roles, Assess candidates for respective leadership positions, Implement individual development plans, Select leadership replacements as positions become available, Implement leadership transition.

Its a cyclical process is designed to ensure organizational continuity through timely, adaptive, and ongoing change in the development and deployment of leadership talent. Conclusion This paper has demonstrated that leadership succession is an enormous organizational responsibility and unless effective succession planning is urgently integrated into organizational culture, most organizations will find themselves on the verge of a leadership transition crisis in the near future. Particularly in the field of public sector, the critical challenge of developing leadership capital cannot be ignored. In an environment of early retirements, reorganizations, and lean hierarchies, often with a depleted pool of mid-level supervisors, there are many obstacles facing agencies in regard to developing and selecting future leaders. Succession planning is a complex task that must be viewed as an ongoing strategic process. For the perpetuation of future success agencies must devote considerable time and resources to
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mapping out a comprehensive plan for identifying and making the best use of available human resources. It is incumbent upon these same agencies to take succession planning beyond

organizational charts and use it as a comprehensive change-management tool that helps the organization identify gaps in talent and fill them more effectively.