In the modern business environment, creating a strong leadership pipeline can be a real challenge. A company may have terrific individual contributors, but struggle to identify those who both want leadership responsibilities and also have the potential to become successful leaders. An older company or family-owned business might have middle managers or team leaders with great longevity or popularity, but who lack the strong skills and abilities to rise to senior leadership.
How to Develop a Strong Leadership Pipeline
One organization I worked with developed an interesting exercise to help senior leaders identify talented employees with the potential to move into positions of greater responsibility. The CEO teamed up with the CHRO to send an e-mail to all company leaders requesting help in developing a strong leadership pipeline.
The text of the e-mail was something like the following:
“We always need to be prepared for the likelihood of some of our leaders leaving our enterprise. This may be due to their being pirated away to another firm, a health issue, retirement, or career changes. Of course, I don’t want to see any of our leaders leave us, but it is naïve to think that this will never happen. You know our people better than we do. Consequently, I am asking each of you to send me your honest answers to the following questions:
“1) List in order five of your company colleagues who you would most like to work for, like to work with, or like to work for you. After each name, please write a sentence or two explaining why you selected each name on your list.
“I am convinced that peers know each other better than we do because you see each other in much clearer, more transparent ways. That is why we need your input in preparing our company for our future leaders.
“2) List the attributes or qualities you most need or admire in your leaders.
“We need to know what type of leader helps you be more successful in your work, in achieving your goals, and delivering desired results.
“Thank you for being a part of our future leadership selection process.”
This simple exercise gets to the crux of building a leadership pipeline based on real skills, abilities, and qualities rather than a simple popularity or longevity contest. The most popular leaders or the leaders who have been with the company the longest can’t always deliver business results that drive long-term success.
This exercise also recognizes a reality that many leaders prefer to postpone thinking about or ignore entirely—that is, the truth that eventually, every leader will need to be replaced for some reason. This CEO and CHRO are planning for an unavoidable reality, which puts their organization a step ahead of the competition.
Gathering this information from senior leaders, directors, or higher-level managers is only one side of the equation. For individual contributors, team leaders, or first-time managers, it’s a good idea to consider the other side of the equation and think about how they can develop themselves to end up on someone else’s list.
6 questions to ask yourself to guarantee your place on a leadership pipeline list.
1. How am I at building the four key relationships for leaders?
All leaders must intentionally develop relationships with four groups: their boss or bosses, their peers, their customers, and their team members. Each of these groups will require a slightly different approach, and the ability to foster good relationships across these four groups is a sign of a leader with the skills and qualities necessary for roles of increasing responsibility.
2. Do I have the basic business skills necessary for a leadership role?
Many new leaders are initially promoted because they are excellent individual contributors. However, they may not have some of the foundational business skills necessary to lead a team—skills such as conducting an interview, managing a budget, or giving feedback.
3. Do I consistently pursue self-improvement?
Leaders at all levels should be in the habit of continuously pursuing self-improvement—both at work and in their personal lives. Personal growth and self-improvement can often benefit leadership skills and abilities; whether it’s cultivating an inclusive mindset, developing better personal habits, or just getting more sleep, what we do in our off hours can almost always make us perform better at work.
4. Do I solicit feedback to evaluate my efforts?
Receiving feedback can be tough, and many people are hesitant to seek it out. But people who ask for honest feedback from their bosses, colleagues, customers, and team members put themselves in a good position to develop and fine tune those skills, abilities, and qualities that can propel them to the next level of leadership.
5. Do I have a growth mindset?
Key to development of any kind is a growth mindset—a perspective that welcomes the discomfort necessary to make improvements and come away with better skills and more knowledge. To develop a growth mindset, leaders and future leaders should pursue new experiences, seek feedback about skills and abilities, and embrace challenges that come along.
6. Have I cultivated mentor relationships or networked with others across functions and roles so that people know who I am?
People can’t show up on a list of future leaders if no one knows who they are! Seek out cross-functional projects or opportunities to meet new people in the organization, and if a mentor opportunity arises, don’t hesitate to take it!
Even if an organization doesn’t take the same approach that this CEO took to building her leadership pipeline, up-and-coming leaders can still use these questions to start or continue developing the skills, abilities, and qualities that will benefit any team or organization. When the perfect opportunity arrives, these future leaders will be well-positioned to step into a role and start delivering results immediately.
Self-check:
- For senior leaders: Do we have a way to identify high-potential or up-and-coming leaders in our organization? If not, would this CEO’s approach benefit our leadership pipeline?
- For individual contributors and early-career leaders: Which of these self-reflection questions do I need to work on the most? What is one way I can work on that issue?
- For all leaders: What is one way to encourage cross-functional and cross-role connection in our organization to strengthen relationships?
