You handed a seat to someone. Maybe you hired a COO to run the operations you used to run, moved your sales leader into the revenue job, or stepped up to chair. The announcement went out. The org chart changed.
Three months later, you're quietly wondering whether you picked the wrong person. Pricing exceptions still land on your desk. Their team checks with you first. In meetings, your successor proposes a decision and the heads turn toward you.
Maybe you did pick wrong. That happens. But the evidence you're weighing isn't necessarily clean: some of what looks like their hesitation may be your unfinished handover.
Before replacing the person, check whether the delay is in a decision you never actually let them make.
The signal is partly yours
People learn where decisions get settled. Coming to you can be memory, not disloyalty. Every time you settle a call that now belongs to your successor, you confirm the old route.
When you quietly reopen a decision, you teach the team that a decision isn't final until you've had the last word. When you solve each problem yourself, you give people a reason to bring you the next one.
A change of leader calls for new working agreements across the team. It doesn't erase the old habits. If your successor's decisions still need your approving nod, people have a reason to wait for you.
My concern isn't only procedural. If the old role gave you much of your standing, being needed can feel reassuring. Ask yourself whether you're judging the business result or how different the place feels without you at the center.
Did the authority actually move? Take a decision you expected them to make alone. Could they commit the budget and get it executed, or did the approval chain still end with you?
Did the team hear you explain what changed? If you left your successor to establish that alone, people may still be testing whether you'll back the appointment. That isn't the only explanation for a bypass, but it's one you should check.
And are you still answering? You can't control every approach. You can control whether you take over a decision you assigned to them.
The successor may also be struggling with the new work. An internal promotion can leave someone doing their old tasks or hesitating to hold former peers accountable. Check whether you've actually reassigned the old job, too. If they're avoiding difficult calls, start by clarifying what the role requires and owning anything you left unclear. Then arrange the support they need, including practice with hard conversations, and review what changes. A clear conversation can establish expectations; it cannot establish that they have the ability to meet them.
Finally, compare their pace with what the business needs, not with yours. If they're making sound decisions in time for the work to move, a different rhythm isn't a performance problem. Leave it alone.
Your half of the handover
I'd start with one seat you've handed over, or one you're about to. This is a practical review I'm proposing, not a validated assessment of executive ability.
In First 90 Days as a New Executive, I advise arriving executives to agree decision rights and success measures with the CEO, in writing. The person leaving owes them the other half of that agreement.
Draft your half, then work through it together. My executive team coaching guide separates four kinds of decisions: those a leader makes alone, those requiring consultation, those needing approval because of risk or cost, and those the CEO retains. Apply that distinction to the handover. Name the actual decisions and limits, not just broad responsibilities. Consultation shouldn't quietly become another approval.
Include the budget they control, the commitments you've already made, and the context behind decisions they'll inherit. Arrange the customer and partner introductions rather than assuming those relationships transfer with the title.
Agree how you'll handle ordinary disagreements privately and how a decision gets reconsidered when new evidence warrants it. You will not quietly reopen calls you've handed over. For a CEO-to-chair move, settle the boundaries with the new CEO and the board; CEO oversight belongs to the board, not to the predecessor acting alone.
Write down what good performance should look like now, before the review starts: which decisions need to move, by when, and what quality or risk limits matter. Include the support you're committing to provide.
Then explain the change to the team yourself, with your successor present. Say which calls now belong to them and which exceptions still come to you. In the next significant client meeting, let them lead the discussion and make the commitments within their authority. Be there for context, not as the person everyone waits for.
Staying involved is not the problem. Competing with your successor's authority is. You may still have a useful role in major relationships or larger deals. Name it and its limits. For transitional support, agree an overlap period, a review date and an escalation path. Stepping back is not disappearing.
For two weeks, keep a shared list of decisions, approvals, escalations and customer calls about that area that still reach you. Note what arrived, who brought it, why they say it came to you, and what you did. It's a record to examine together, not a file you're building on them.
Route calls within their authority to them, even when you know the answer. Handle approvals you've deliberately retained through the agreed path. Keep protected reporting channels open: a concern about your successor is not something you automatically send back to them.
Judge more than what reaches you
At thirty days, sit down together with the list and a sample of decisions that never reached you. Look at what was decided, whether it happened in time, and the results available so far. A quieter inbox is not a performance measure.
Consider a pricing exception. A request above the successor's agreed limit should reach the approver. A request within their limit that you overturned is evidence of your intervention. One they had the authority and information to decide, but left unresolved past an agreed deadline, deserves a direct performance conversation. The same arrival in your inbox can mean very different things.
For unresolved problems, agree who will change what and by when. Check the successor's account against the work, including workload and dependencies. The list can point you toward a cause; it cannot prove one.
Thirty days is a first check on the handover, not a universal deadline for proving executive capability. Any further review window should allow real opportunities to do the job and reflect the risk the business can carry. Don't keep extending it because the personnel decision is uncomfortable.
You don't need a perfect handover before addressing demonstrated performance problems. Correct your side and address theirs in parallel. If integrity, safety or serious customer harm is at stake, act promptly through the appropriate process rather than waiting for this review.
A completed handover won't make a wrong appointment right. If the evidence shows a poor fit, say so directly and make the decision through the proper authority. What you shouldn't do is run the area from the shadows while leaving them accountable for it.
Your successor doesn't have to run it your way. They do have to run it.
Do your half. Then judge the decisions they actually own, not how often your phone rings.
Working through this with your own team?