Once a leader's departure is announced, peers move early to claim the territory and wait out contested decisions they cannot win now, betting that the successor will decide differently.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
When a regional airline announced that its vice president of maintenance would retire in June, the head of flight operations saw two things. The maintenance group's planning team fit naturally with her own scheduling function, and his last big proposal, moving engine inspections onto a predictive schedule, was one she thought premature. She told the chief executive she wanted to propose a combined planning function after the transition and asked to brief the two internal candidates for the maintenance job. On the predictive program, she argued at the executive committee that a decision of that size should wait for the person who would run it, and the committee agreed to hold it for the successor. The new vice president arrived in July, reworked the program into a pilot on two aircraft types, and backed the combined planning team.
Why it works
Waiting looks easier because the departing leader's time horizon has collapsed: they will be gone before any review or career consequence can land, and a decision held for the successor costs nobody much. Pushing the leader's contested proposals through looks less worthwhile, since the credit they can give stops counting the day they leave and the successor may undo the work, and backing them carries a price, as it marks you as the outgoing leader's person. It needs a fixed departure date, a successor likely to differ, and proposals without a constituency of their own.
The thinking behind it
Thomas C. Schelling The Strategy of Conflict (1960) holds that a threat works only if the other side believes it would be carried out. A departing leader's threats and promises lose credibility as the exit date nears, because there is less and less time to carry them out, so peers can wait out contested decisions at little risk. The leader's counters, outside deadlines and a successor's written endorsement, restore credibility by tying directives to someone who will still be there.
Jeffrey Pfeffer Power in Organizations (1981) treats power as structural position: control of resources, information, and the decision process. A departure date tells everyone when that control will pass, so peers begin positioning for it in advance. Overlapping tenures and formal authority that holds until the handover narrow the window in which the territory is open.
When it fits
Peers or senior managers with a credible claim on adjacent territory, and a view on pending decisions, can use it once a leader's departure date is fixed and the successor is likely to differ. You need standing with the chief executive or the board, because every move is made in the open.
How to use it well
Separate decisions already made from proposals still open, and treat them differently.
- Carry out directives that have been decided. Stalling them is defiance, and the successor will remember it too.
- On open proposals you oppose, argue in the proper forum that a decision of that size should wait for the person who will own it.
- State your interest in the territory to whoever decides it, and make the business case.
- Offer to brief the candidates for the role. It helps them and gives you an early working relationship.
Move just ahead of your peers. Too early marks you as the one waiting for the leader to go; too late finds the territory already settled.
What it costs and where it backfires
Departing leaders keep their authority until the exit date and may spend it on anyone who claims territory early. Retirements get delayed or reversed, and a peer who moved too soon is exposed. Successors notice who stalled. Marking decided directives in progress while nobody works on them, or telling staff that work will be reversed before anyone has decided so, is deception.
When it is used on you
Announce as late as you can if you are the one leaving, get the successor or the board to endorse your main directives in writing, and attach outside deadlines. Use the authority you still hold on early claimants, who know a delayed retirement leaves them exposed. Ask for completed milestones, since status labels can say in progress indefinitely.