As we approach the time of year when leaders start to look for new roles or promotions, there are two questions you can ask to test the quality of any succession plan: if one of your staff left tomorrow, who would replace them? If you left, who could fill your shoes?

Without a quality succession plan, your department or school will have leadership gaps that will affect the performance of the team and impact on results for pupils. The larger your team, the more important this becomes. It also becomes more complex and requires multi-year planning. 

With that in mind, whether you are planning for your team or thinking about your own future, here are four key areas to consider to ensure that your role, department, school or organisation - and therefore your pupils - are set up for success.

Develop your talent pool

You will have in mind people in your organisation who are potential successors to a given role. To prepare them for a future step up, undertake a gap analysis between current skills and performance, and the future needs of the role. You can then put in place a specific individual development plan.

Pass on responsibilities

To prepare for a new role, the person stepping up needs opportunities to take on some of the responsibilities before they are formally in role. If you are the leader in post, think about what elements of your role you could let go of, such as chairing senior leadership team meetings. If you are stepping up to a leadership role, ask if you can take on specific “stretch” projects. The majority of learning happens on the job, so you can best prepare by taking on responsibilities ahead of time. 

Consult an external network

It may be that there is nobody internally to succeed or no role to step up to, so it is also sensible to have a network outside of school. Keep up to date with moves and promotions in other schools so you know about the local talent and who might be looking for a move. As recommended by leadership expert Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, in his book, It’s Not The How Or The What But The Who, it’s also helpful when promoting internally as you will have a benchmark to compare internal talent against.

Manage the transition

Outside of education, between a third and half of new leaders fail within the first 18 months. They don’t understand the complexities, politics and context of the new role and make mistakes from which they can’t recover. Preparation is critical to success, so if you have the opportunity for a transition period or handover, take it. If you are stepping up, my advice is to spend the first few weeks listening, observing and forming your views on what needs to change. If you are handing over, share your experiences, challenges and what makes things work for you. This will be gold dust to your successor, who is, after all, your legacy.

James Toop is chief executive of Ambition School Leadership