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Reference

Zhao, H. H., Wang, M., Yuan, Y., Ni, D., Zheng, X., & Lam, S. S. K. (2026). Detachment and Attachment: A Dual-Pathway Model of Leader Succession Rituals. Journal of Management, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063261419057

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Wel­come to Revise and Resubmit 🎙️✨ the show where serious research still gets to feel like a human story, the kind you can recognize in your own bones.

Think about the moment a leader leaves. Not the org chart update, not the email with the careful subject line, but the quieter aftershock. The familiar voice is gone. The old habits linger in conference rooms like perfume. People smile, people clap, people say “exciting times,” and meanwhile everyone privately wonders, “What exactly are we allowed to believe in now?” 👀🗝️

Today we are stepping into that in-between space with a paper that treats succession as more than a handoff. It treats it as a ritual. The article is titled “Detachment and Attachment: A Dual-Pathway Model of Leader Succession Rituals” by Helen H. Zhao, Mo Wang, Yue Yuan, Dan Ni, Xiaoming Zheng, and Simon S.K. Lam, published online on 23 February 2026 in the Journal of Management, which is not just respected, but prestigious and firmly on the FT50 list 🏛️📚.

Here is the idea, told plainly but with its full weight. When organizations change leaders, they often reach for rituals to tame uncertainty and make the transition feel real. The authors map six of these rituals, and you can almost see them play out like scenes:

• Artifact adoption 🧩: the new leader takes up symbolic objects or practices

• Endorsement act 🤝: the new leader gets publicly validated

• Welcome ceremony 🎉: the community formally receives the new leader

• Artifact return 📦: symbols of the prior era get handed back or set aside

• Closure act 🔒: the ending is marked, not merely implied

• Farewell ceremony 👋: the former leader is publicly released

And the twist, the satisfying clarity, is the dual-pathway model: some rituals build attachment to the new leader, while others help people detach from the former one. This is not only qualitative insight either. The authors begin by listening closely and naming what is happening, then they test it in a real firm during acquisition-driven succession, and then again with an experiment across working adults. Across those studies, certain rituals stand out as especially powerful: endorsement acts, welcome ceremonies, and farewells 🎯.

If you like episodes that move from symbolism to evidence, from felt experience to tested mechanism, you are in the right place. Subscribe to Revise and Resubmit on Spotify ✅🎧 and follow the YouTube channel Weekend Researcher ▶️🔔. You can also find the show on Amazon Prime and Apple Podcast 🍎📻.

And as we open this conversation about how organizations say hello and goodbye, ask yourself this: when the next leader arrives, will your workplace only introduce them, or will it also give everyone permission to let the old one go? ❓🕯️

Thanks to the authors, Helen H. Zhao, Mo Wang, Yue Yuan, Dan Ni, Xiaoming Zheng, and Simon S.K. Lam, and thanks as well to SAGE Publications for publishing this research in the Journal of Management.