Succession planning is as prevalent in the corporate world as balance sheets and annual reports. Corporate boards want to keep business churning after the sudden departure of key executives, so identifying and grooming potential replacements is common practice. The concept hasn't taken off in advancement, but given the department's critical roles in building external relationships and generating resources, the topic is gaining traction.

Michael Eicher, senior vice president of advancement at The Ohio State University, has a strong track record of cultivating advancement, fundraising, and communications vice presidents and vice chancellors. His protégés include such top leaders as Keith Brant of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Susan Cruse of Emory University; Peter Hayashida of the University of California, Riverside; Lawrence Lokman of Pennsylvania State University; Scott Rembold of The Catholic University of America; Fritz Schroeder of Johns Hopkins University; and Rhea Turteltaub of the University of California, Los Angeles. CURRENTS talked with Eicher about turning standouts into VPs.

Succession planning isn't commonplace in advancement, but you've helped people prepare for leadership positions for years. Why is that?

One of a leader's most important jobs is to plan for the future. That entails thinking about who's going to carry on the work after I'm gone. I take a pipeline approach: thinking about who has the ability, the desire, the skills, and the understanding to assume these larger leadership roles. I want to surround myself with people who want to grow. It is then my job to facilitate that growth and to position these individuals for future responsibility within the organization. One of the great joys in my career has been to watch the satisfaction people get when they are challenged to do things they never thought they could do and then succeed. Learning to lead takes practice. My job is to help people learn and to coach them along the way.

Why is continuity at the top so important?

Every time the leader changes, the program needs to reset. It has to start over again in some ways, building new relationships, creating trust, putting programs in place, and convincing people of the new direction. Just as it takes years sometimes to develop a major gift, it takes years to develop these programs. Having a succession plan helps to assure continuity and improves long-term performance. Regular direction-changing is not a healthy model.

How do you identify people with the characteristics needed to succeed in your position?

Qualities that are not on a resume matter deeply: broad-ranging curiosity, collaborative relationships, creative problem solving, humility, and the ability to interact in a complex environment. I'm looking for leaders as well as managers, people who have both sets of skills.

What's the difference?

Leaders look to the future. Managers are concerned about today, much more short term. Leaders are interested in change, risk-taking, and setting direction. Managers are concerned with risk mitigation and stability. These skills are needed in balance. I need people who are thinking about stability and risk management, and I also need people who are thinking about change and setting new direction.

How do you cultivate leaders?

It starts with selecting the right people. I do not want to work with clones of myself. I want people who bring skills that I do not have, people who have different abilities, perspectives, and experiences. We have a growth plan for each of my direct reports. It starts with an assessment of skills and abilities, and it involves regular reviews. We make a serious commitment to developing talent and growing that talent over time. That commitment involves time and resources. The growth plans are tailored to each individual: For some, it means providing opportunities for stretch assignments that cross structural silos. For others, it means coaching and mentorship, and not always just from me.

How do you push your staff to improve their weaknesses?

If someone's not comfortable making public presentations, then let's push them and figure out how to get them more relaxed in front of an audience. Maybe someone is not as comfortable building long-term strategic plans. We talk about it, they draft plans, and then we come back together and make it better.

At this point in their career, my direct reports have years of experience. If they are development professionals, I'm going to assume they're pretty good fundraisers. But some of the other skills—working across disciplines, working with a volunteer board or a committee, building campaigns, interfacing between a board and a president—are skills that my senior leaders experience and practice. You can't read a book about riding a bicycle and then go ride a bicycle. You have to practice pedaling—you have to make mistakes, fall down a few times. That's how we develop our leaders. You have to be willing to take risks, to let people do things a little differently than you would. They have to learn their own style and what works for them.

I will have my senior team members staff the president on visits and calls and certainly join me in meetings. These are all things that somebody did for me along the way. You can't grow folks into this job without their understanding what goes on behind the scenes. A rock-solid relationship with the president is necessary but not sufficient. Successful VPs must have good relationships with volunteers, deans, board members, donors, alumni, and community leaders. To run a place this complex, all of these relationships are critical.

So you were groomed for leadership.

I had a lot of good mentors and bosses who were tough on me and pushed me to grow and probably saw things in me that I didn't see, who did all the things that we just talked about—for me. They put me in situations that I didn't feel ready for. They spent a lot of time and resources developing me.

We don't spend enough time teaching advancement staff to be leaders and managers. For example, we take our best fundraisers and promote them. We take them away from what they're good at, and we expect them to then lead and manage people, without much training or guidance.

There's a lot of turnover in presidencies, and new presidents often put their own people in senior leadership positions. Does that uncertainty render succession planning meaningless?

I've certainly seen what you've just described. I see this as a little more complicated. I report to the president, but my role involves building institutionwide relationships and plans that everyone buys into—the board of trustees, our volunteer corps, our staff, our deans. This means an advancement leader's position is much more complex than simply managing up to the president. I have experienced a number of presidential changes. When a new president comes in and says, "This is working!" we are able to keep moving. That new president might change the fundraising priorities or tweak some of the strategies, but I've not personally had a president completely change direction on us.

You invest all this time and money developing leadership talent. What if they get picked off?

I want to create a team of people that others want. One of the best ways for me to avoid the problem you just outlined is to hire people nobody wants. Of course, that is a silly solution. So I hire people who are the best in their field, help grow their capabilities and skills, and then expect them to get pinged once a week for jobs that are interesting. But my job is to create an environment where they see themselves in the future, perhaps one day sitting at my desk and doing this job, where they are growing and developing—that's what keeps people in their roles. All my good people will get looked at regularly. I can't be threatened by that. Frankly, I see it as a measure of our effectiveness.

For more on leadership development, read "So You Want to be the VP?" also in the January/February 2016 issue.