In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was temporarily waylaid by Covid-19, which shook up the British political system that has no provision for a short-term fill-in PM

Should our succession plans be different now and how? Even assuming you had all the above plan elements in place at the start of 2020, the world has changed... and so has your view of your leaders and their skills. While the pandemic may not have changed the world but only accelerated the changes that were visible a year or two before, it is certainly feels different for the uninitiated now. Honchos now need more resilience, agility and ability to lead by example.

Like peace-time generals in wartime, potential successors may have shown themselves not up to the radical demands of the past three months. Many rising executives who came of age since the economic crisis of 2008 have never faced a trauma such as this. Is your board building a review of crisis responses and results into its talent evaluation? Some of our client boards are making a second leadership assessment of their leaders currently. They are also searching for outside talent now. We have heard of two boards asking for external candidates who’ve been through prior crises and recovered.

Moving forward, the Covid crisis is expected to shake up long-term succession planning in other ways. We predict many CEO hires from industries other than theirs will happen. Some boards may tend to play it safe by sticking with hires from closely allied fields. Also, as is common in a crisis, boards are sticking with their current talent line up for now, meaning less immediate top exec turnover. But though change slows during a crisis, it springs back in a year or two.

CEOs who aren’t up to the demands of 2020 will be vulnerable in 2021. Investors and regulators have prodded boards to disclose more on their succession plans over the past few years. Expect them to be very demanding on this next proxy season.