Power Vacuums: Part Two of Two

Yesterday I opened this discussion on power vacuums inside organizations that are created when an influential person leaves and a line of succession has not been put into place. (And, no, we're not talking about what you clean your floors with.)

As is the case with vacuums, even in nature, something or someone will always move into the vacuum to fill it. For an unprepared organization, this is not a good thing. When your mission and your very existance depends greatly on the influence of your leadership, having a power vacuum opens the door for the wrong people to fill the void.

I recall this very thing happening in an organization I was a part of for a number of years. We had a family who was very involved with the organization, and very influential. Sadly, their influence was built around negative things, like threats and intimidation. The average person in the organization was fearful of this family. So, it was a favorable thing to anticipate their departure.

That departure came in a very short, very volitile sequence of events that left the organization with a power vacuum that no one in leadership anticipated. Because of this family's heavy involvement, many activities and positions were left vacant when they resigned. Now, most were filled with others in the company, but not the most important one. The position of influence was left hanging out there like a carrot for any horse willing to grab it. And, that's exactly what happened.

In fact, the influence vacuum was filled by someone on the leadership team who before this point had been rather soft spoken. As it turned out, this individual had merely been intimidated. With the previous power brokers gone, this person stepped forward to claim the power vacuum, and in the end, became as difficult to deal with as the first group.

I point all this out to say that in leadership, we have to be aware of where the influence is in our organization, and be prepared for the days that influence leaves, creating a power vacuum. That applies to both good and bad influences in your organization. If you don't react to fill, block or eliminate the vacuum, someone will always fill it for you. If your success depends on having the right leaders and influencers in the right places, you can't afford to ignore vacuums and let nature take it's course.