The succession trap: how leadership entrenchment undermines learning in organizations

Abstract

This paper examines leadership entrenchment as a learning problem in which succession risk grows when judgment, legitimacy, and key relationships become tied to one leader. The paper adopts a conceptual, practitioner-informed approach. It draws on repeated observations across anonymized organizational settings and integrates leadership continuity and learning-oriented leadership ideas to identify patterns of leadership entrenchment. The paper shows that succession vulnerability emerges from organizational dependence, not leadership continuity alone. SHIFT enables managers to identify and loosen five dependence risks: concentrated knowledge, weak accountability for successor development, limited successor exposure, hidden single-point dependencies, and untracked renewal readiness. The paper is conceptual and practitioner-informed. Future research can examine how leadership dependence forms and how renewal readiness can be measured across organizational contexts. Managers can use SHIFT to surface dependence risks, share knowledge, increase successor exposure, and make renewal part of everyday leadership practice. The paper extends succession and leadership development discussions by showing how leadership entrenchment weakens organizational learning before a formal transition becomes urgent.