Who actually carries responsibility for leading the company now?
Your successor needs the authority, information, relationships and support to lead. You need a clear continuing role and a way to review company performance. A new title becomes meaningful when people use the new arrangement.
This milestone requires an actual CEO handoff, a completed post-handoff review and rehearsed emergency continuity. Preparing those things is valuable progress. Deliberately remaining CEO can be the right choice while succession remains in progress.
Choose the successor for the company they will lead
Begin with the current strategy, company needs and CEO responsibility defined in M25. Identify the judgment, leadership and cross-functional capability the next phase requires.
Consider internal development and external recruitment. Look at actual decisions, the person’s use of financial information, how they develop leaders and their response when results fall short. A strong functional leader still needs evidence of company-level readiness. A family relationship, years of service or an assessment total does not settle the decision.
Agree the appointment, authority, reporting and support through the company’s actual approval process. Connect compensation to Module 8 and resolve material financial and employment dependencies before relying on the arrangement.
Transfer the work and explain what changes
Identify which company decisions, relationships and responsibilities move, when they become effective and what remains reserved. Give the successor the current Playbook, reporting and authorized access needed to lead. Communicate the route to affected leaders, employees, customers and advisers.
Describe the contribution you intend to keep making. Board oversight, requested mentoring and a defined operating assignment have different purposes. Employees should know who is responsible for their decisions and how to raise a serious exception.
For example, if a customer calls you with a service problem after the handoff, you can acknowledge it and connect the customer with the accountable leader. A material risk follows the agreed escalation route. Privately directing the team to reverse the CEO’s decision creates two competing instructions.
Review how the new arrangement works
Choose a post-handoff review point that provides enough actual evidence to judge the arrangement. Inspect the successor’s decisions, leadership work, information and response to problems. Examine how you handled requests to bypass the new CEO.
Good results alone do not prove the successor is leading. Poor results deserve investigation into the information, resources, judgment and response. Record what continues, what changes and how material gaps are resolved or controlled.
The current requirement does not impose two quarters above plan, a particular vacation or a real crisis. It requires an effective transfer and a completed review of actual use.
Prepare and rehearse emergency continuity
A planned CEO handoff and an unexpected absence are different events. The company needs to know who acts temporarily, what they can decide and how essential work continues if a key person is unavailable.
Walk through a realistic scenario with the people named in the plan. For example, the CEO is unreachable for two weeks and the first backup is also unavailable. Who coordinates the response? How do authorized people handle payroll, customer commitments and critical information?
Record what the rehearsal tested, what failed, the repairs and the next review. Keep credentials and protected documents in their approved locations; the plan identifies custodians and access routes. Appropriate advisers verify the underlying authority. A tabletop discussion establishes what was rehearsed, not proof that every operation can run indefinitely.
Use the four-page Succession Plan
The Succession Plan brings together the CEO role and candidate evidence, agreed handoff, actual review, and emergency continuity. Your existing appointment, communication, reporting and continuity records may already provide much of the evidence.
If you are planning the handoff, begin with the role and candidate. If the successor already leads, begin with the effective authority transfer and completed review. Keep proposed action, hypothetical practice and completed company events distinguishable.
Maintain the plan in Your Leadership Team / CEO company plan. Keep dated decisions and reviews in The Rhythm. The Role Transition Plan supports the owner’s personal preparation; the Capital Allocation Plan maintains the ownership relationship after the transfer.
What completed succession looks like
The successor carries the CEO responsibility, the owner honors the agreed boundaries, the first review is complete and emergency continuity has been rehearsed with material gaps addressed. An organization chart, named backup or partial delegation alone is insufficient.
Open the five completion requirements
1. Appoint a suitable CEO successor
Purpose: Define the company-level role, evaluate the person and agree appointment, authority and support.
Shared review question: Why is this person ready for the CEO role?
Evidence: Actual role/candidate evidence, acceptance and authorized terms. A named backup or functional leader title alone is insufficient.
2. Transfer the role and communicate it
Purpose: Give the successor the authority, information, relationships and resources needed to lead the company.
Shared review question: Has the handoff become effective?
Evidence: An effective handoff and real communication to affected people, with access and responsibilities established.
3. Use the new leadership arrangement
Purpose: The successor leads and the owner follows the agreed ownership/governance boundaries.
Shared review question: Who is actually leading now?
Evidence: Actual CEO decisions and leadership after transfer, plus evidence of how bypasses or interventions are handled. Partial delegation is not a completed CEO handoff.
4. Complete a post-handoff review
Purpose: Review the arrangement at its agreed review point, address material gaps and assign continuing support.
Shared review question: What did the first agreed review show?
Evidence: A completed owner/successor review with dated evidence, decisions and follow-through. No universal above-plan result or fixed quarter count is required.
5. Maintain and rehearse emergency continuity
Purpose: Provide for unexpected unavailability and test whether the responsible people can use the arrangement.
Shared review question: Could the company act during an unexpected absence?
Evidence: Current interim authority, critical-work/access/communication arrangements and a completed rehearsal with material gaps resolved or controlled. No real crisis is required.
Review the milestone-specific 0–3 score and evidence test
0 (Not Started). No substantive succession work or supported practice is in place.
1 (Learning). You can explain the difference between CEO succession, ownership transfer and emergency continuity, but have not prepared a usable company arrangement.
2 (In Progress). Substantive work is underway, but one or more of the five requirements remains incomplete.
3 (Installed). All five requirements are met: a suitable CEO successor has assumed the role, the owner follows the agreed boundaries, a post-handoff review is complete and emergency continuity has been rehearsed.
Verification test: inspect the current company work and the actual-use evidence for all five requirements. Explain the decisions, supporting information, remaining responsibilities and next review. Distinguish preparation from what actually happened. No recall timer, mandatory sale or emotional-readiness score is added.
Use suitable existing work. Record each requirement as complete, incomplete or not reviewed, with the evidence and date. You choose the saved score; keep owner, peer, coach and AI assessments separate. Unreviewed evidence is not automatically zero. Preserve earlier reviews and identify the next action, responsible person and review date.
Maintain the arrangement as the company changes
Review current handoff issues monthly and reconsider the arrangement quarterly. Annual planning connects leadership, compensation, funding and ownership goals. A leadership departure, financing change, ownership event or health concern can require an earlier review.
Completion is a current capability, not a promise that the company will never need your attention again. Keep the authority and support useful as circumstances change.
Conversations about leadership and succession
- Episode 371: Joel Trammell on the CEO role. Define the mandate before evaluating who should carry it.
- Episode 322: Rachel Wallis Andreasson on a family transition. Separate family, employment and ownership responsibilities.
- Episode 455: Jim Carlisle on boardroom ownership. Consider the continuing relationship after an operating handoff.
Read CEO Succession, Ownership Governance and Owner Identity and Significance.
Choose your next step
Review the wider system. Use the Ownership Assessment to connect this work with your goals, financial foundation and leadership readiness. Choose the next useful capability from the evidence.
Build the connected plan with support. The 90-Day Boardroom Blueprint brings ownership direction, the financial foundation and decisions into a first usable Playbook. You can explore support directly; a future CEO handoff follows your circumstances and readiness.
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