At Rudin Management it is literally a case of a business where family members are brought up with the opportunity to lead the firm. William Rudin, that company’s vice chairman and chief executive officer, grew up in the business his father and uncle ran. “I was in a front-row seat,” he recalled. “That was a very unique opportunity.”

Now Rudin how children who are involved in the firm and are being groomed to potentially one day take the helm of Rudin Management.

Taconic Investment Partners is another story. As a relatively new firm, founded by Paul Pariser and Charles Bendit in 1997, building the business has been the focal point for much of its existence, and the two of them had a tight grip on operations.

Now they are thinking longer term. “I’m looking for people who will sit in a meeting and take over and understand the complexities of our business,” Pariser said. “I don’t think there’s anything certain about looking at a person and saying whether they’ve got it or they don’t.”

Obviously, in a large publicly traded firm such as AvalonBay Communities there are significant resources to enhance leadership. The REIT brings in professors from renowned universities to give workshops on leadership, said Bryce Blair, the firm’s chairman.

Blair pointed out that sometimes the best dealmakers in your outfit aren’t necessarily the ones you want to have in a leadership position, and that’s OK because they are needed in their roles as “rainmakers.” “The organization needs dealmakers,” he said. “The organization needs leaders. Not all dealmakers can be leaders. You need rainmakers, and you need to celebrate people in those individual markets.”