Managing Leadership Transition for Nonprofits: Passing the Torch to Sustain Organizational Excellence

7. Creating a Transition Management Plan

Leadership transitions are ripe with opportunity. When they can avoid the inclination to rush and to move into reactive activity and crisis mode, organizations can take the time to review and renew the vision and strategies that have guided their actions. To do so, they must mark off this transition period, affirm it, and reconceive it as a special time—and manage it with the rigor of a major project.

All organizations operate through projects: building new programs, putting in information or financial systems, conducting year-end performance reviews, and the like. In some ways, project planning and execution form the most basic building blocks of organizations. When projects are well planned and executed, ...