South African companies are rethinking how senior roles are designed as professionals place greater value on flexibility and the ability to keep developing their expertise. Those that adapt their leadership pathways accordingly will be better positioned to build strong, succession-ready pipelines.
Mark Watt, Partner at global leadership advisory firm Heidrick & Struggles, says South African companies are increasingly finding that employees once expected to move into senior management are choosing instead to advance as specialists, taking on more complex work without the added responsibility of managing teams. This trend has significant implications for organisations given that succession planning depends on developing credible leadership options well before a senior vacancy appears.
“Where this shift will really hit an organisation is down the line when succession plans need to be implemented,” he says. “Increasingly, the depth isn’t there through the upper-middle to senior ranks, because some of the people expected to progress into those roles are weighing the additional responsibilities, stress, accountability, and time commitment of management against other ways of advancing their careers. They may prefer to focus on their work and expertise, while protecting more time for family, hobbies, and life outside the office.
“The challenge is that companies generally expect managers to be both expert doers, handling high-level technical work, as well as expert coaches responsible for developing their teams and guiding their progression. Carrying both roles is starting to feel like too heavy a burden for many professionals advancing up the ranks.”
He notes that opting out of people management should not be mistaken for a lack of ambition. Someone can be a highly experienced specialist who wants to keep advancing, take on more complex work, and earn more while staying focused on their craft rather than managing a team. Companies run into a roadblock when they make people management the price of career progression.
Notably, the value proposition companies built for a workforce that accepted work-first sequencing no longer holds, because candidates now assess a senior role against the life they intend to lead, and will trade income for genuine flexibility. Furthermore, the structural cost for employees of leaving organisations has fallen away, given that medical cover and retirement provisions were once tied to the employer, but are now entirely portable. As a result, employees have fewer reasons to remain with one employer when a role no longer suits their needs.
Widening the field
Watt argues that the more serious problem is not the number of people willing to move into leadership, but who is left in the running.
“When the strongest professionals opt out of the leadership track altogether, organisations are left with a much narrower pool of desirable leadership options. It is a solvable problem, but only if you change what you’re offering.”
He subsequently outlines five practical steps that company leaders can take to make leadership roles more attractive and build stronger succession pipelines:
1. Split leadership roles
Don’t expect one individual to carry the full weight of technical execution and people management. Redesign roles by separating technical and operational responsibility from people leadership and adopt co-leadership models that spread the demands of senior positions. Expert doers then progress in status and salary as individual contributors, while expert coaches focus on developing people.
2. Shift to genuine, individualised flexibility
Move beyond broad flexibility policies and give employees greater control over how they structure their workflows and working arrangements around their lifestyles. People should be able to choose how and when they work, provided performance and business requirements are met.
3. Replace sink-or-swim attitudes with structured support
Stop promoting top performers into leadership without guidance. Introduce structured, well-resourced onboarding, dedicated coaching, and ongoing support, with stronger emphasis on leadership capability, mindset, and behaviour management rather than technical competence alone.
4. Embrace radical transparency and faster cycles
Recognise that many workers today expect far greater openness, including around pay. Introduce clearer merit-based salary and bonus frameworks rather than trying to enforce secrecy, and create faster, more responsive promotion cycles that better match the pace at which they expect to progress.
5. Plan for the digital future
Heidrick & Struggles’ leadership assessment work shows the current pool of senior executives score strongly on technical capability and inclusive leadership while falling away sharply on digital and emerging technology. At the same time, younger cohorts – who are starting to climb the ranks towards management positions – are inverting the pattern entirely. In response, companies must better assess the skills and digital capabilities the organisation will need three to five years from now, then build the talent pipeline around those requirements.
“South Africa Inc. is in the early stages of a major recalibration of senior management expectations among top candidates. The organisations that adapt and begin redesigning senior roles now will be better placed to choose from a deeper bench of leadership talent when succession decisions need to be made,” Watt concludes.
