"Inheriting The Legacy of Leadership Succession Planning: A 20-Year Blueprint"
by
Paula J. Giddings

The challenge of creating new organizations and institutions to meet the changing needs of a Black community presents itself again, as it did 100 years ago. Black women must develop both a strategy for the 21st century and the leadership to implement it through the major vehicle of succession planning. In the development of a blueprint, Dr. Frederick D. Patterson, chairman emeritus of the Robert R. Morton Memorial Institute, noted: "We have to find out where the pressure points are, and their positions must be filled with qualified leaders." The corporation, major Black women's organizations and educational institutions are critical institutions or "pressure points" to target for the blueprint. Leadership development is the key to the future, and succession planning will ensure it. In keeping with the times, there are many different kinds of leaders, who must contribute to our blueprint. It is important to stress doing things a different way or to express differing views. As John Gardner stresses, too many young leaders are put into the position of being "servants of what is" rather than a new model of "what might be." In terms of our one-to-one relationships, mentoring and coaching is imperative. Empowering ourselves and those who come after us have deep meaning, not only in the political sense, but also in the personal.