Separations at the top can be difficult, emotional, and highly visible. The ramifications can extend across employee morale, future hiring, and your all-important brand reputation.
Treating departing leaders with respect, authenticity, and support makes a difference.
We recommend these best practices to create a thoughtful, well-organized, and smooth transition.
Best Practices for Executive Departures
Do:
- Plan and prepare carefully for the separation with the right stakeholders.
- Foster goodwill by seeking input from the executive on messaging about their transition.
- Communicate clearly and as quickly as possible to the organization when the notification occurs.
- Be factual and genuine in your communications.
- Respect the departing executive’s right to privacy.
- Be open to questions and concerns.
- Offer the departing leader outplacement support at a firm that specializes in executive job search and career transition.
Don’t
- Underestimate the impact of executive departures on employee morale, future hiring, and your brand reputation in the market.
- Apologize for the termination or inject your own emotions into the discussion (i.e. “this hurts me as much as it hurts you”).
- Delve into detailed reasons for the termination. (This is not the time to provide performance feedback.)
- Launch organizational communications without a clear message or plan for notifying all impacted groups.
Looking for more guidance on career transition in the executive suite? You’ll find other helpful articles, our step-by-step transition checklist for senior leaders, communication templates, and other proven resources in our online guide, “An HR Leader’s Guide to Executive Transition and Outplacement.”
