Presidential turnover at colleges and universities is high. Between 2022 and 2024, more than one in five presidents and senior executives left their roles. At many of those institutions, the departure came sooner than expected and without a transition plan in place.
Boards cannot always prevent a president from stepping down earlier than anticipated. They can, however, require that the sitting president develops a viable succession plan—one that can be activated to keep the university moving forward when a planned or unexpected departure occurs.
This article delineates six recommendations for sitting presidents to consider as they plan their own succession. When used together, these recommendations might turn a moment of disruption into one of continuity and confidence.
1. Name the Reality and Normalize the Conversation
Continuity matters in higher education. It takes years, not semesters, to build programs, partnerships, and policies. When a presidency ends abruptly or without an orderly handoff, initiatives stall, confidence wanes, and institutional energy dissipates.
A president’s planned departure should not be expressed or experienced as rupture. It should be conceived and experienced like a relay—marked by the careful handoff of responsibility and insight.
Presidents and boards should design that handoff before the leader enters the starting—or, in this case, the “exiting”—blocks. The first act is acknowledgment. Turnover will occur sooner or later. Giving the president and vice presidents permission to discuss it out loud normalizes the conversation. It also frames succession planning as a sign of organizational evolution not of personal exit.
2. Build Strong Benches, Not Single Successors
Succession planning must go beyond naming a successor. It requires building the systems and people that carry knowledge, culture, and priorities forward.
The strongest universities cultivate leaders at every level through cross-training, mentoring, and opportunities to lead outside one’s “home” department. When mid-career deans understand enrollment drivers or department chairs learn to read the divisional budget, they become institutional thinkers, not just unit leaders. That shift embodies the essence of collective transmission: the passing of cumulative wisdom to a greater whole.
Equally vital are the knowledge keepers who hold institutional memory. Boards and senior teams must build electronic systems that capture the stories, experiences, and rationales of long-serving faculty and staff. As they step away, their personal observations, papers, meeting minutes, and the like should be stored in an easily accessible file, not locked away in an unknown, dark place. Future administrators would be well served to review these past treasures.
3. Expect Boards to Routinize and Reimagine Succession Planning
Succession planning should not be delegated entirely to the incumbent president. Governing boards play an indispensable role that begins long before they are reading a resignation letter.
Effective boards treat succession planning as a standing agenda item—a periodic review of presidential readiness and institutional continuity. When boards and presidents discuss leadership succession as part of broader strategic planning, they signal that this work is essential to governance and growth, not ancillary to them.
Boards that take succession seriously also think beyond the predictable list of internal candidates. Too often, presidential succession plans start and stop with the provost, the CFO, or another senior cabinet member. Out-of-the-box thinking invites a wider lens. Some boards consider respected leaders from partner institutions, nonprofit executives whose missions mirror the university’s, or seasoned community leaders who could serve as a credible short-term president while a comprehensive search unfolds.
These types of considerations do not reflect unintentional “planning creep” but critical and creative planning that deliberately fosters out-of-the-box thinking. This proactiveness prepares boards to respond with steadiness and imagination when change occurs, ensuring that the presidency is filled by the type of leader who understands both the gravity of the role and the distinct context of the institution.
4. Consider an Interim as Part of the Overall Transition
Even the most intentional transitions can be disrupted by the unexpected: a health crisis, a governance impasse, or an external offer that is just too good to refuse. That is why every university needs two complementary plans—a long-term succession plan that guides leadership continuity over time and an interim plan that maintains stability if the presidency changes abruptly.
An interim plan clarifies who could assume short-term authority, how decisions will be managed, and what communication steps will preserve confidence across the community.
Interim appointments work best when they are not assembled in the heat of the moment. Charting them in advance, as a direction to follow and recalibrate as circumstances unfold, smooths what would otherwise be a very bumpy path. Advance charting steadies the institution, protects its people, and keeps attention fixed where it belongs—on students, staff, and mission.
5. Model Presidential Responsibility
Though it may feel awkward at first, presidents must model succession planning by planning for their own. Every leader who cares about institutional longevity should ask two questions early and often:
What am I building that will outlast me?
And who am I preparing to carry it forward?
Presidents model this responsibility not by naming a replacement but by cultivating readiness within their cabinets, their governance partners, and the wider institutional culture. They share context rather than hoard it, delegate meaningful work rather than symbolic tasks, and involve others in decision-making processes that reveal how institutional priorities are set and sustained. These habits make continuity a natural outgrowth of leadership, not an afterthought.
Presidents should speak candidly about succession not to spotlight their individual departure but to demonstrate organizational preparedness. In doing so, they normalize departure as part of the leadership arc. That transparency builds confidence across the community and quiets speculation about what might happen “if.” It affirms that the institution’s stability rests not on one person’s presence but on a shared embodiment of mission and a joint desire for continuity.
When presidents model the notion that succession is not a private concern but a collective discipline, they replace anxiety with agency and show that leadership is less about possession of power and more about the transfer of knowledge and empowerment of others to carry on.
6. Move Forward Amid Change
Presidential transitions test more than logistics; they test an institution’s ability to move forward in the face of change. Forward movement comes from discipline—the discipline to document, to delegate, to plan, and to revisit plans regularly. Presidents who approach succession in this way resist the extremes of panic on one side and denial on the other. Part of the legacy an effective president builds is a system capable of absorbing change without losing coherence.
By embedding succession planning into everyday leadership practice—rather than waiting for an impending departure—presidents can model the foresight they ask of others. Without such a plan, institutions lose more than leaders. They lose momentum, memory, and morale.
The statistics referenced in the first section of this blog are drawn from this article: https://hepinc.com/newsroom/examining-leadership-turnover-rates-in-higher-education-over-the-past-decade/
