Building up the next successful leader thru inadequate succession planning will have a huge impact on the higher institution, and without a good plan in place, the journey forward for the higher institution will be unclear and will lead to many structural challenges. Often higher institution also grapples with the challenge of having a succession blueprint for other senior-level roles. One way to achieve this is for management to redefine their relationship with the subordinate by assuming the role of leader as opposed to the role of teaching providers. As our theoretical understanding of succession planning is still limited; therefore, this study attempts to explore the relationship between leadership characteristics and succession planning programs in public universities in Terengganu Malaysia. We identify dimensions of idealizing influence, motivational, individualize, and intellectual stimulation that reflect quantitative approaches for employee's perspectives in implementing succession planning. The quantitative research design was employed by distributing survey questionnaires to 300 respondents from three public universities in Terengganu, Malaysia. Overall, this study provided support to the proposition succession planning and leadership characteristic and filled the research gaps. Idealized Influence and Intellectual Stimulation are the most dominant dimensions that affect the implementation of succession planning programs. The results offered several hints to the employees regarding the potential factors that may affect to achieve career success and provided some insights into the present Human Resources practitioners in formulating strategies to make succession planning success.