When Bob Iger stepped down as CEO of Disney in 2020, it looked like a textbook ending. After 15 years transforming the company, overseeing blockbuster acquisitions (Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 21st Century Fox) and presiding over a golden era of cultural dominance, the reins were handed on. Iger announced he would remain as executive chairman for a transitional period and on the surface, it felt like a characteristically Disney ending: polished, controlled and celebratory.
There was, however, an unexpected sequel when, in 2022, Iger returned amid growing strategic, cultural and financial challenges at Disney.
It’s tempting to either eulogize one leader or villainize another, but the more useful question is what this situation reveals about the nature of endings themselves, and why transitions that appear smooth on the surface can still destabilize confidence both within and outside the organization. Iger’s departure and subsequent return offer a useful reminder of how complex CEO succession can be.
In our book Good Bye: Leading change better by attending to endings, we explore why major career endings so often feel unfinished, even when they are well-intentioned and carefully managed. A common mistake is to focus so much on succession, handover and future planning that opportunities to fully acknowledge all that is ending are missed. What looks like a single moment of departure is, in reality, a progression of distinct stages, each with its own opportunities and risks, and when these are overlooked, leaders, successors and organizations alike feel the consequences long after the farewell.
We frame this in terms of four REAR steps: facing the Reality of the vacated seat, recognizing and working with the Emotional ripples created by departure, allowing space for Accomplishments to be witnessed and creating a true Ritual that makes way for a new beginning. Whether or not these were fully completed in Disney’s transition is not for us to judge, but Iger’s exit and return powerfully illustrate why CEOs must treat succession as more than a handover and why stability and trust matter to employees, stakeholders and the wider system alike.
The vacated seat: The Reality step
Succession planning is often treated as an operational exercise: appoint the successor, manage communications, reassure investors, move into the onboarding phase and keep all eyes on the future.
We would say that, whilst it may feel counterintuitive, the first responsibility of any ending is to face the full reality of what will be left behind. Not what you hope will happen. Not what you want to be true. But what is likely to happen for all involved once the seat is vacated?
There are two key and deceptively simple questions to address:
Is the organization strong enough to succeed without you?
Have you genuinely made it possible for someone else to exceed your success?
Iger’s first retirement attempt suggests that while the plan existed on paper, the organization may not have been ready for the psychological and cultural reality of his absence. He remained close, first as executive chairman, then with continued influence, which may have softened the ending but also blurred the boundary.
This is a common CEO trap: staying involved “for continuity” while unintentionally undermining the successor’s authority. The result can be a transition that looks stable from the outside but feels unstable from within.
The ripples: The Emotion step
One of the most overlooked dynamics in succession planning is the emotional ripple effect.
For some, retirement represents relief or excitement. For others, it can trigger uncertainty, grief, resentment, anxiety or even a sense of abandonment. Retirement for anyone is a very significant moment, but in the understandable focus on themselves and their role, leaders often underestimate how many others around them experience it as a destabilizing event. For long-term colleagues, it can feel like the end of an era. For successors, it can be both a longed-for opportunity and a daunting prospect. And, for new colleagues, it can feel like a disappointing shift away from the organization they thought they were joining.
And when leaders fail to acknowledge the breadth and depth of this emotional dimension of a succession, they can unintentionally create uncertainty, unspoken fears and shifts in relationships that over time, quietly become organizational politics.
In this sense, the return of a former CEO is never neutral. It is loaded with meaning: “We needed you,” “We couldn’t do it,” “You are still the real leader.” Even if none of that is explicitly said.
This is why succession planning is not only about capability. It is about the emotional preparedness of the organization, the successor and the departing leader themselves.
The witnesses: The Accomplishments step
Every organizational ending, especially the retirement of the highest-profile role, is witnessed by multiple internal and external stakeholders, both up close and from a distance. How accomplishments are acknowledged and celebrated sends messages to all these stakeholders not only about the individual retiring, but also about what the organization values, recognizes and celebrates.
For those watching on from within the organisation, this can be seen as a representation of what they mean to the organization, too. It can have a profound effect on witnesses to acknowledge accomplishments not only in terms of results, but also by describing the skills, strengths and qualities that enabled those achievements. This helps the organization recognize not only what has been achieved, but how it was achieved, and to carry that insight into future opportunities and challenges.
Noting accomplishments after reflecting on reality and emotions also helps ensure that, as the outgoing CEO’s accomplishments are rightly and fully acknowledged, there is an eye on how to prevent their successor from being set up to firmly be in their shadow. A subtle but important part of the retiree’s narrative is that their success does not diminish the chances of the next person being successful. This can be a difficult line to find, but it’s important because if the narrative is “nobody will ever be like you,” it may unintentionally set the successor up to fail. Using the accomplishments step to prepare for the next step of the ritual helps plan how to both honor the leader’s contribution and recognize that the organization is bigger than one individual.
The new beginning: The Ritual step
In Good Bye, we describe the final phase of transition as ritual; the deliberate act of making way for what comes next.
In CEO succession planning, the ritual step includes a meaningful celebration made possible by recognizing accomplishments. It’s more than that, though. It also signifies the formal exit, the boundary-setting and the creation of psychological space for the new leader to establish legitimacy. If you don’t define and mark the change, you don’t get a clear succession; you get a blurred boundary between the end and the beginning, and that is where confusion and uncertainty thrive.
The question CEOs should ask isn’t “How do I retire gracefully?” It is: “How do I leave in a way that allows the next leader to truly begin?”
Start planning now
To work with your exit in mind might sound counterintuitive, but it makes even brighter beginnings possible. Retirement is so personal and at the same time so public and symbolic that CEOs often underestimate its complexity. The most powerful retirement planning begins while you still have time to build a system that doesn’t depend on you.
It takes a last act of strong and responsible leadership to recognize that leaving well is what makes the future possible.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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