ABSTRACT
Robust succession management requires a clear-headed analysis of talent and how it should be defined to create a meaningful blueprint to guide decisions about who should be developed and progressed. Across the battle-grounds of succession management, the identification and development of talent is the force which is being assembled to fight future business wars. If succession management is about the anticipation, planning and preparation for the organisational future to ensure that key roles can be filled easily and quickly, then "potential" is the "promise" to achieve that future. Whereas supervisory/junior management involves working with a close-knit group engaged in a specific organisational task, the move to middle management typically widens the horizon to span a range of different issues. Operating at middle management is difficult. Mid-ranking professionals and executives have to reconcile two sets of pressures: the upward pressures of employees versus the downward demands of senior management.
