A lot of the ability for senior leadership to get things done is due to the network they've built inside the company, and their understanding of the power dynam

A lot of the ability for senior leadership to get things done is due to the network they've built inside the company, and their understanding of the power dynamics within that company. This is less and less true the lower you go in the ranks. Therefore it might cost some extra money to replace that IC, but nothing like the hit to productivity that switching senior management could cause. One way to guard against that would be to adopt a model where senior management are routinely switched so that the working level becomes robust against changes in management.