Assignment 4: Southern Company Case Study

Running Head: Southern Company 2

Evaluate the effectiveness of the roles that the strategic leaders played in the formation of the performance management strategy.

In 2003, Southern management came to the realization that although they had great management, their workforce was aging and they had not done much to ensure that they would have an effective succession plan in place. Thanks to a low turnover rate and a desire to promote within, the employees that were hired in the 70’s and 80’s were now part of the management team. The average age of executives was fifty-two, middle and line managers forty-nine and forty-seven. Although this showed a stable management workforce and a commitment to the company, it also showed that as executives began to retire; their successors would also be in line to retire shortly thereafter.

Southern Company’s leadership teams played a significant role in the formation of their performance management strategy. In 2004, Southern Company initiated a review of their succession planning and leadership development. The goal was to review their current practices and determine how to advance leadership development and ensure they had a pool of leadership talent over the next ten years. Once the review was completed, they determined that there were several strengths and weaknesses within their current process. First senior management was devoted to the successes of the company and leadership development. They had processes in place to identify and develop leaders. Succession planning was conducted annually to focus on replacement planning. They utilized a number or programs such as mentoring, business acumen discussions, education classes and an action learning program for high potential first line leaders (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). During the review, several weaknesses were also found. Although leaders felt they knew the high- potential talent in their organization, it was found that they did

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