Leadership Succession
Planning: A Critical Component of Career
Development
Donna M. Nickitas, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, CNE, FNAP, FAAN
Professor, Hunter College, N.Y., N.Y.
Executive Officer, Graduate Center, N.Y.
Editor, Nursing Economics
[email protected]
April 18, and 19, 2016
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Session Overview:
§  Leadership Succession Planning is a primary faculty satisfier and
a significant factor in faculty retention.
§ 1. Developing a Faculty Recruitment and
Retention Program provides faculty with a
nurturing and enriched environment that
emphasizes mentoring, guidance, and
coaching skills critical to success in the
tenure and promotion process.
2
Session Overview:
2. Faculty must have time to learn
the skills and develop inside the
academy.
3. A leadership succession plan is a
critical component of career
development.
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Session Objectives:
§ 1. Identify the critical elements of a
successful leadership succession plan.
§ 2. Analyze the role of leadership in career
advancement and succession planning.
§ 3. Discuss evidenced-based strategies
required for effective leadership succession.
4
Challenges in recruiting and retaining a highly qualified workforce
Global shortage of registered nurses
Shortage of nurse faculty
Salary & job
satisfaction
Values
Increasing demands
& constraints upon the workforce
Expectations and demands
5
Leadership Succession
Who’s job is it anyway?
Succession planning is an important thing
to consider and is a hallmark of a true
leader.
6
Question:
Are you ready or do you know how to identify
and develop your potential replacements!
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Academia succession planning plays a
critical role in leadership development.
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Succession planning
Definition
§ Succession planning can be defined as
the process of preparing selected
individuals to assume leadership roles
for which they have been preselected
(Griffith, 2012).
*
M. Griffith Effective succession planning in nursing: a
20 (7) (2012), pp. 900–911
review of the literature. J. Nurs. Manag.,
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To the Drawing Board…
What do you really know about leadership succession
planning?
10
The root word of succession
Is success
§ Nurse leaders who take succession
planning seriously and implement a
formalized plan do so to ensure future
leaders are being mentored to expand
their leadership competencies and
experiences.
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Why is succession planning such a difficult
leadership challenge for so many nurse leaders?
12
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§ Involves 3 components:
― identifying
―  guiding
― mentoring
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Implications of Faculty Shortage
Two major implications of the issue of a faculty shortage identified
by McDermid et al. (2012)
1. overall shortage of RNs and a negative effect
on patient safety and quality of care.
§ 2. a deficit of nursing faculty to educate an
adequate supply of RNs has a direct impact on the
nursing shortage.
§ 
*F. McDermid, K. Peters, D. Jackson, J. Daly. Factors contributing
to the shortage of nurse faculty: a review of the literature. Nurse
Educ. Today, 32 (5) (2012), pp. 565–569.
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Contributing Factors
Impacting succession planning
•  Lack of
qualified
educators
•  Aging
workforce
•  Workload
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According to a Special Survey on Vacant Faculty
Positions released by AACN in October 2014
§  a total of 1,236 faculty vacancies were identified in a survey of
714 nursing schools with baccalaureate and/or graduate
programs across the country (80.0% response rate).
§  The data show a national nurse faculty vacancy rate of 6.9%.
Most of the vacancies (89.6%) were faculty positions requiring or
preferring a doctoral degree.
§  The top reasons cited by schools having difficulty finding faculty
were insufficient funds to hire new faculty (61.3%) and difficulty
in recruiting qualified applicants for open teaching positions
§  (56.5%). www.aacn.nche.edu/IDS
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Shortage of nursing faculty
Lack of educators
§  Clinical expertise is no longer viewed as adequate experience to
be an educator. Although between 2005 and 2010 there was an
overall increase in enrollment and graduation rates into doctoral
(PhD) programs, the slowed growth rates of graduates may
imply that supply is not meeting the demand as initiatives to
increase enrollment of baccalaureate nursing students are
presented as a solution to the shortage.
―  American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2012a,American
Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2012 Data on Doctoral
Programs
American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2012b, American
Association of Colleges of Nursing, Nursing Shortage
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Shortage of Nurse Faculty
Slow growth
§  Slow growth in PhD completion suggests that there are not
enough nurses educated at the doctoral level to teach in
university programs.
§  There is also the suggestion in the literature that once graduates
do obtain doctoral designation they may prefer to do research
rather than educate undergraduate students (
McDermid et al., 2012).
§  One Australian study found that only half of the nurses who
were teaching and pursuing doctoral studies continued to teach
once they had completed their degree requirements (
Wilkes and Mohan, 2008).
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Aging workforce
Nursing is an aging workforce.
§  Faculty age continues to climb, narrowing the number of
productive years educators teach.
§  According to AACN's report on 2013-2014 Salaries of Instructional
and Administrative Nursing
§  Faculty in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, the
average ages of doctorally prepared nurse faculty holding the ranks
of professor, associate professor, and assistant professor were 61.6,
57.6, and 51.4 years, respectively. For master's degree-prepared
nurse faculty, the average ages for professors, associate
professors, and assistant professors were 57.1, 56.8, and 51.2
years. (www.aacn.nche.edu/research-data)
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We Need A Succession Plan
Nurse Faculty
§  If neither class sizes nor number of classes increase then there
will not be a sustainable number of graduates to meet the
projected need of 1.2 million nurses in the United States by 2020
(American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2012a,
American Association of Colleges of Nursing,
2012b and McDermid et al., 2012). This in turn will affect patient
care and safety (McDermid et al., 2012). As the current
generation of nursing educators near retirement they will have a
responsibility to become involved in succession planning for the
future through the processes of identification, recruitment,
development and mentorship (Griffith, 2012
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Question?
§ Who is going to replace
these faculty members
when they retire in a
few short years and the
effect on clinical areas
from having their most
experienced nurses
recruited into academia.
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Succession planning
Nursing Faculty
§ Within recent literature about strategies to address
the clinical nursing faculty shortage one source
seems to be consistently forgotten: early-career
nurses. Band-aid solutions of encouraging older,
masters prepared nurses, to re-enter academia or
recruiting experienced nurses from clinical areas to
faculty positions seem to present themselves
redundantly in the literature (
Wyte-Lake etT. al.,
2013).
Wyte-Lake, K. Tran, C.C. Bowman, J. Needleman, A.
Dobalian. A systematic review of strategies to address the
clinical nursing faculty shortage. J. Nurs. Educ., 52 (5)
(2013), pp. 245–252
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Elements of Effective Succession Planning:
Consists of a formalized succession plan
1.  It is an annual process to identify the potential of open
positions.
2.  Built on the framework of a solid organizational vision and
mission.
3.  Contains the critical skills needed to move the organization
toward the future.
4.  Recognizes the mechanism of how best to formally identified a
leadership team.
5.  Recruits and hires nurse faculty because they fit with the
existing organizational culture and bring skills and talents to
the role that will enhance and strengthen the culture.
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A Succession Planning Model
Griffith (2012) recognizes
a continuum between
§  identifying
§  recruiting, developing,
and
§  coaching potential
future leaders.
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TIPS FOR BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE
SUCCESSION PLAN:
§  1. Take it seriously.
§  2. Write the job description
you would hand to the
headhunter or search
committee.?
§  3. Develop a document that
outlines
the skills and attributes nec
essary for leadership
success
§  4. Get the right people “on
the bus.” (Jim Collins, author
of From Good To Great.
§  5. Share relationships.
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Lessons Learned:
What’s my personal game plan?
Activity: Turn to your
neighbor:
1. Discuss your game
plan.
2. Ask for advise.
3. Get their business
card or
contact information.
4. Develop at least one
strategy and share it
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Leadership Succession is…
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Succession Planning is
§  A Critical Component of Career Development
§  The reality is faculty shortages at nursing schools across the
country are limiting student capacity at a time when the
need for professional registered nurses continues to grow.
Budget constraints, an aging faculty, and increasing job
competition from clinical sites have contributed to this
crisis. (www.aacn.nche.edu).
―  Recruiting and retaining the next generation of educators begins
now, with each of us.
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Thank you!
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Questions
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Session References:
§  ABC News. (2014, October 1). National nursing shortage fueled by lack of
teachers. Retrieved from
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/10/national-nursing-shortagefueled-by-lack-of-teachers/
§  Brannan, J., White, A., & Wilson, C.B. (2010). A Mentor-Protégé Program for New
Faculty, Part I: Stories of Protégés. Journal of Nursing Education, 49(11),
601-606 doi: 10.3928/01484834-20100630-04
§  Brannan, J., White, A., & Wilson, C.B. (2010). A Mentor-Protégé Program for New
Faculty, Part II: Stories of Protégés. Journal of Nursing Education, 49(12),
665-671 doi: 10.3928/01484834-20100730-08
§  Burruss, N., Pettus, S., Reifschneider, E. (2009). Faculty Achievement Tracking
Tool. Journal of Nursing Education. 48(3), 161-164.
§  DS Havens, PA Thompson, PB Jones. (2008). Chief nursing office turnover: chief
nursing officers and healthcare recruiters tell their stories. J Nurs Adm, 38, pp.
515–52.
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Session References:
§  Dunham, J., Lynn, C. W., Moore, P., McDaniel, S., Walker,
J. K. (2008). What Goes Around Comes Around: Improving
Faculty Retention Through More Effective Mentoring.
Journal of Professional Nursing. 24(6), 337-346. doi:
10.1016/j.projnurs.2007.10.013
§  Ellenbecker, C. H. (2010). Preparing the Nursing Workforce
of the Future. Policy, Politics & Nursing Practices. 11(2),
115-125. doi: 10.1177/1527154410380142
§  Fitzpatrick, J.J. (2014). Succession Planning for Nurse
Faculty: Who Will Replace Us? Nursing Education
Perspectives, 35, (6), pp. 359.
§ 
§ 
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Session References:
§  Fitzpatrick, J. J., & Montgomery, K. S. (2006). Career success strategies
for nurse educators. Philadelphia, PA: F. A. Davis.
§  Garry, J. The Five Keys to an Effective Succession Plan
http://www.joangarry.com/effective-succession-plan/
§  Hadidi, N., Lindquist, R., Buckwalter, K. (2013). Lighting the Fire With
Mentoring Relationships. Nurse Educator. 38(4), 157-163. doi: 0.1097/
NNE.0b013e318296dccc
§  McBride, A. (2010). Toward a Roadmap for Interdisciplinary Academic
Career Success. Research and Theory for Nursing Practice: An
International Journal. 24(1), 74-86. doi: 10.1891/1541-6577.24.1.74
§  Robles. MM. (2012). Executive perceptions of the top 10 soft skills
needed in today's workplace. Bus Prof Commun Q, 75 (2012), pp. 453–
465.
§ 
§ 
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Session References:
§  Sambunjak, D., Starus, S. E., Marusic, A. (2009). A Systematic
Review of Qualitiative Research on the Meaning and
Characterists of Mentoring in Academic Medicine. J Gen Intern
Med. 25(1), 72-78. doi: 10.1007/s11606-009-1165-8
§  Stichler, J. (2008). Succession planning: why grooming their
replacements is critical for nurse leaders. Nurs Womens Health,
12, pp. 525–528
§  Vogelsang, L. E. ( 2014). Early succession planning for nursing
faculty Nurse education today, 34, (10), pp. 1277-1279.
§  Waxman, K. T., & Delucas, C. (2014). Succession planning.
Using simulation to develop nurse leaders for the future. Nurse
Leader, 12, (5), pp. 24-28.
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