PR agency succession done right has been hiding in plain sight, and our industry keeps showing us how.

Consider Weber Shandwick. Harris Diamond passed the CEO mantle to Andy Polansky, who passed it to Gail Heimann, who passed it to Susan Howe. This September, Howe hands it to Karen Pugliese. Five planned transitions, and the firm never missed a step.

At Golin, Fred Cook passed the chairman’s mantle to Ellen Ryan Mardiks, who carried it into this year’s merger that created Golin Ketchum. And at M Booth, founder Margi Booth recruited a seasoned Ketchum leader, Dale Bornstein, as her successor, moved into the chairman role herself, and watched the agency she built nearly quadruple.

Three firms. Three different paths. One common thread: every successor was a proven leader, developed and ready long before the handoff.

So here’s the uncomfortable question. Who’s that leader-in-waiting at your agency?

For most principals, the honest answer is silence. And that silence is the agency succession crisis hiding inside our profession.

The Crisis in the Numbers

A few weeks ago, I wrote about founder dependence, the bottleneck that forms when everything runs through you today. This is the harder question: who leads your agency tomorrow? And the data should concern every principal. Harvard Business Review research found that badly managed leadership transitions destroy close to $1 trillion in market value each year among the S&P 1500 alone. (Harvard Business Review)

You don’t run an S&P 1500 company. That’s precisely the point. Those firms have boards and committees devoted to succession, and they still get it wrong.

Most agencies have none of that machinery. And they’re in good company: a SHRM survey found that 56 percent of companies have not set succession plans in motion years ahead, which is when the real work happens. (NACD Directorship)

The firms that get agency succession right aren’t lucky. They start early, and they develop the right person.

The Mistake Agencies Are Poised To Make

Here’s the mistake I see coming: anointing the wrong successor for the right reasons.

You know the heir apparent. She has the strongest client relationships. She grows the business organically. She pursues, pitches, and wins new clients. She’d make a great agency CEO on paper.

All of that is essential. None of it is leadership.

Gallup’s research puts a number on this trap: companies fail to choose the candidate with the right talent for management 82 percent of the time, and only one person in ten has high talent to manage. (Gallup)

If organizations get it wrong that often naming a manager, imagine the stakes when naming the person who will lead everyone, including your other leaders.

Look again at those three firms. The Weber Shandwick successors were sitting presidents who had led for years before they became CEO. Dale Bornstein arrived at M Booth after a 27-year career at Ketchum, where she ran the New York office through 9/11 and a recession, and eventually became the Head of Global Practices. These weren’t the best rainmakers handed the keys. They were proven leaders, ready.

A proven leader is something different. She shares and lives the agency’s values. She builds trust. She coaches rather than commands. She inspires people to follow her, not merely report to her. Above all, she knows she only succeeds when others succeed.

If your presumed successor checks the rainmaker boxes but not these, you don’t have a succession plan. You have a wish.

What the Best Leaders of Leaders Know

Years ago, I interviewed several of our industry’s most respected leaders of leaders, and their wisdom maps directly onto agency succession.

Ellen Ryan Mardiks, then chairman of Golin, now Golin Ketchum, told me: “When someone first becomes a leader, he or she is primarily a teacher. The challenge is recognizing that if you don’t pivot from teacher to mentor to coach, you won’t be an effective leader of leaders.”

Read that as a succession test. The principal who’s still teaching hasn’t built a successor.

Rob Flaherty, then chairman of Ketchum, who later retired after leading the firm as president, CEO, and chairman, described it this way: “It’s like a blank canvas on a tight frame: the frame is your vision, and perhaps some of the core strategies, but they get to paint the canvas to achieve that vision.”

That’s succession in miniature. Hand your future successor the frame. Then let them paint.

Jim Joseph, then president of McCann Health North America, now Global Chair, Brand Impact at FleishmanHillard, told me: “You have to be willing to step out of the way, allow them to lead, let them shine, and do things as they see fit, with you acting more like the safety net.”

That’s the whole succession posture in a sentence. You step back so they can lead, and stay the safety net while they find their footing.

Andy Polansky, who led Weber Shandwick and then IPG’s PR group through a number of transitions, once told me: “Throughout my career I’ve worn many hats. This has helped me appreciate different perspectives, a key skill to tap while leading leaders.” The leaders who steward great successions are the ones who have learned to see through other people’s eyes.

Some Questions To Consider

If you couldn’t walk into the agency on Monday, who’d lead it? Would your team follow that person or merely report to them?

When did you last let a rising leader make a significant decision you would have made differently?

Are you still teaching, or have you pivoted to mentoring and ultimately coaching?

And the hardest one: are you developing a proven leader, or just hoping your best manager becomes one?

The Boost Every New Leader Needs

One more truth about agency succession: even the right successor needs support, and she needs it most at the moment of promotion.

I learned this firsthand, years before I ever coached anyone. I was a senior VP and then EVP at Marina Maher Communications, now known as MMC, working for its founder, as the agency grew from 18 people to 55. Marina had every reason to keep her hands on everything. Instead, she would look at my plan and frequently say, “It’s not what I’d do, but you have my proxy.” Or, “Let’s try it your way, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll figure it out.”

She knew exactly what she was doing. She was teaching an experienced but overly cautious leader to walk through fear and become a decisive one. She was helping to develop me as a leader.

Newly minted leaders are almost always promoted to lead people who used to be their peers. Yesterday’s colleague becomes today’s boss. She must establish authority without losing relationships, find her own leadership voice, and learn the job, all at once, while everyone watches.

That’s exactly where executive coaching provides the boost. A coach gives your rising leader a confidential place to work through the peer-to-boss transition, build her leadership identity, and grow into the role before the agency depends on her. Leaders I’ve coached describe what that support made possible.

Marina gave me that boost herself, one “you have my proxy” at a time. Your successor deserves the same, whether it comes from you, a coach, or ideally both.

PR agency succession isn’t a document. It’s a leader you’ve developed.

If you’re thinking about who will one day lead your agency, or preparing someone who soon will, I offer a complimentary consultation. You can schedule it here.