This post was mentioned on Twitter by andrea_duggan: Blog Update: What employers can learn from the Jay Leno Conan O’Brien succession plan! http://ow.ly/16nhJi...

In this case, I think the late-night-show model of monologue plus guests has faded significantly. Yes, millions still watch, but fewer and fewer in real time. Even Leno has not been as common a denominator for, say, work conversation as Carson was before him. That has at least as much to do with the product model, so to speak (format & time slot), as with the individual performer.

I’m also thinking of the stark contrasts between Reg Jones and Jack Welch (Jones’s choice to succeed him at GE); likewise between Welch and his successor, Jeff Immelt. I have no insight into why the choices were made, but I suspect the outgoing CEO saw the world changing and leaned toward someone with different strengths from his own.

Note also that the runners-up for the post of new CEO immediately went elsewhere. You can’t have everything.

A real challenge for leaders at any level is staying too long–either physically, as in remaining in place like a hereditary ruler, or emotionally, as in failing to recognize that maybe you don’t need eight divisions in your auto company.