Leadership Vacuum
'Development' meant: a leadership course, a mentoring program, and a stretch project that was too small to stretch.
One who doesn’t prepare in good times suffers in hard times. Valluvar links preparation to resilience. Your next leader isn’t being developed. The succession plan says ‘ready.’ Reality says empty. The VP is leaving in six months. The pipeline has three names. Each has been ‘in development’ for two years. None has been given actual leadership scope. ‘Development’ meant: a leadership course, a mentoring program, and a stretch project that was too small to stretch.
In March 2018, an Uber self-driving car killed Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona. I read the NTSB report. The safety driver was watching a video on her phone. She wasn’t negligent in the traditional sense. The automation had created what the report called ‘automation complacency.’ The system detected Herzberg six seconds before impact. It classified her as a vehicle, then as a bicycle, then as unknown. It never initiated emergency braking because that function had been disabled to reduce ‘jerky ride quality.’ The paradox of automation: the better it works, the less humans pay attention when it doesn’t.
Vacuums create instability because nature demands filling. In physics, a vacuum, while theoretically stable, creates powerful forces as surrounding systems rush to fill the absence. The vacuum itself is neutral. The instability it causes is not. Leadership vacuums work identically: when a leader departs without a prepared successor, the surrounding organisation rushes to fill the gap. Multiple people compete, politics intensifies, decision-making fragments. The vacuum doesn’t destroy. The rushed, unplanned filling does.
Identify your successor. Not their name. Their readiness. Are they making real decisions today that you would normally make? If not, start delegating one decision per week. Leadership develops through practice, not through programs.
That empty pipeline has a name. Leadership Vacuum. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Untie The Knot
Uproot
The vacuum formed because leadership development meant programs, not practice. ‘Development’ was a course, not a delegation of actual authority.
Navigate
Succession is measured by readiness: is the successor making real decisions today that the incumbent would normally make?
Tool
CORE / Evolution: the growth framework that measures leadership readiness by practice, not by program completion. Evolution asks: are they deciding, or are they studying?
Implement
Identify your successor. Are they making real decisions today? If not, delegate one decision per week. Leadership develops through practice, not programs.
Emerge
When leadership is practiced, successors are ready when needed, vacuums don’t form, and the organisation’s judgment scales with its ambition.