The art of the handoff
Leadership transitions are inevitable and often more complex than we expect. Most organizations focus on logistics like finances and operations, yet there is a critical aspect that is often overlooked: the human side. This week on Pave It Black, we talk with leadership consultant and author Albert Cuiksza. Albert helps companies transition successfully by focusing on emotional intelligence and relationship dynamics.
He shares what truly makes or breaks a succession plan, drawing on decades of consulting experience across industries. He discusses the unique responsibilities of both the predecessor and the successor and how understanding emotions, motivations, and expectations can lead to a smoother, more impactful transfer of leadership. If you’re in the middle of planning a handoff or just beginning to think about the future, this conversation is a must-listen.
Here’s a sneak peek into this week’s conversation but be sure to tune in to the full episode for all the insights. Listen now.
What are the three most important qualities a leader should have?
I hate to do one, two, and three but let’s go with it. One of the things that has been interesting in our work is uncovering that the key skill in leadership is emotional intelligence. When we look at what executives or what search firms are looking for in C-level roles, we’re looking at how leaders are judged at any level. If you look at basically every piece of research, the first thing that drives employee retention, employee commitment, employee engagement is emotional intelligence. In fact, there’s a really interesting piece of research that the Harvard Business Review published where they looked at job descriptions for C-level roles from 2000 to roughly 2020. What you see is the percentage change in the interest in having these emotional intelligence and people skills skyrockets about 40%. In that time, the interest in having technical skills for those roles basically plummets at the same rate. It ends up looking like alligator jaws at this point because the job of being a CEO is so complex, or being a C-level leader is so complex, you can’t afford to be holding all the information in your head. What your job really is, is putting people in the best possible process to succeed in their roles and that EQ piece is the common thread. Certainly, there are other things. If we did two and three, being able to manage conflict or being adaptable. There are so many different things that I would list, but first and foremost, it would be hard to challenge that one would be emotional intelligence.
Have you seen an evolution in the skills required to hold these leadership roles?
There’s some stuff that’s just timeless. Treating people well would be a good example of a good timeless, leadership skill. Communication, effective communication, and being proactive and listening appropriately. All those things, those are evergreen. To your question, how has leadership changed and how do we tee ourselves up for the future? I don’t think the emotional intelligence piece of this conversation goes away anytime soon. The reason is that is, as we start to offload technical capability to either automation or AI tools. We need to be able to drive results by inspiring people and having them excited about the process. Then you add some of the generational transitions that come into play as well. We’re starting to see some research, early research into Gen Z coming into the workforce, and some of their general lack of engagement. A thing that we’ve heard in a lot of our research to this point. The extent to which Gen Z has a level of flexibility that, for some earlier generations would be almost mind blowing. Those dynamics are absolutely on the table. As leaders, it’s our job to adapt to the people who are following or we could think we’re a leader, but if we don’t have anyone behind us, we’re just a solo PR practitioner, right? So leadership in that case is really about being able to take that new information and adapt. You see things like return to office and all these different types of policies that are starting to spark debates. I think every organization’s policies are different, but the bottom line is being able to hit that sweet spot between what the organization needs and what employees are looking for. Making sure you’re minimizing turnover and some of those costly costs in the process.
