The best leadership legacies inspire us to think boldly about the future. They compel us to reaffirm our own commitment to the cause and to move forward with a renewed sense of mission.

Yet too often, organizations struggle — seeking to balance the procedural aspects of leadership transitions against the preferences and calendars of the individual leaders. What gets lost in the swirl is a rare opportunity to engage employees and other stakeholders in a way that is personal, energizing and lasting. You’ve just been handed the keys to a catalyst.

As you plan your next CEO or c-suite transition, you’ll want to highlight your organization’s performance and the essential strengths and qualities of your outgoing and ascending leaders. And more importantly, consider how you might capitalize on this singular moment for the benefit of your stakeholders — modernizing the value of your organization and all it stands for through an authentic leadership lens.

Three considerations when ushering in a new leader

In any leadership transition, you are in effect framing and safeguarding three leadership legacies — the outgoing CEO’s, your new CEO’s and the legacy of your organization. It’s helpful to focus the transition on a few fundamental truths that are central to your organization and those it serves.

1. Start by looking for ways to broaden the conversation beyond the transition plan and key messages. For instance, you may identify genuine connections among leadership platforms, your business strategy and employee value proposition, your ESG commitments and innovation pathways — or your organization’s mission and the unique contribution that it makes to society. Use these connections to build relevance for stakeholders.

2. A transition is also an opportune time to develop or enhance the profiles of your senior leadership team. It’s less about creating “swim lanes” — which might give the impression that your leaders are each doing their own thing — and more about building alignment and amplifying distinct yet complementary viewpoints.

3.Think about your leadership culture overall. Is there more your organization can do to develop next-generation leaders — at all levels? How might your new CEO serve as their advocate and bring their voices and perspectives into the mix?

Now for the tactical side of things…

The following recommendations are designed to rally your stakeholders with a spirit of inclusivity and shared opportunity. Here are five considerations to employ as you transition from one CEO to the next:

• Celebrate colleagues and culture
  In reflecting on the achievements that occurred during your outgoing CEO’s tenure, consider ways for the leader to elevate colleagues and the organization. Applaud individual passion yet emphasize collective effort. The valedictory message that your outgoing CEO shares with employees and other stakeholders should be brief, heartfelt, uplifting, forward-focused and most of all, inclusive.

• Lean into equity
  If your organization made real progress with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion during the outgoing CEO’s tenure, now’s the time to cite it — and to reaffirm and ideally increase your commitment to continued improvement and growth. If progress on this front has been slow and sporadic, this is the moment to intensify efforts and accelerate.

• Elevate with common purpose
  As you build the leadership platform for your incoming CEO, consider the ways it will rightly illustrate and humanize your organization’s enduring commitment to its mission — recognizing that it should evolve (and your employees should help drive that evolution). Stakeholders are always reassured by an appropriate measure of continuity, but they also have a keen interest in shaping and facilitating change that sparks new growth.

• Plan symbolic (and not-so-symbolic) acts
  Because actions speak louder than words, your new CEO may wish to consider one or two highly visible and consequential leadership decisions or actions during their first weeks in the role to reinforce their message. Ideally, these actions would be designed to accelerate strategy, strengthen and differentiate the organization, mitigate risk or capture new opportunities.

• Be authentic and make moments count
  “What’s his tweet for Thanksgiving going to be?” is a real question a stakeholder once asked a chief communications officer. And because the stakeholder was a senior leader with a steady interest in the CEO’s communications, addressing the query took a good amount of diplomacy and time. Avoid managing your new CEO’s platform reactively. They will be expected to speak out on a range of topics related to and well beyond your business, so get out in front of key issues and stay there. Sit down with your leader frequently, discussing areas they are passionate about and determine in advance — ahead of stakeholder pressure and watershed moments — where it’s vital for them to offer a point of view. Authentic advocacy on behalf of your organization and stakeholders should be a mark of your new CEO’s tenure, offering significant reputational and societal value.

When a leadership transition is successful, it honors not only the unique leadership traits and capabilities of both the outgoing CEO and the ascending CEO, but also the organization’s collective accomplishments within the context of a shared, overarching vision. For stakeholder audiences, the main focus must always return to the trajectory of the organization and the people it serves. And every milestone celebrated must predict further progress, championed by all.

United Minds is a Weber Shandwick consultancy dedicated to making business more human. To learn more, reach out to [email protected].