Is your leadership pipeline running dry? How long has this been a problem? I believe the reason we have a deficiency of leaders today is we never built a culture of leadership development yesterday. And if we don’t build a culture of leadership development today…guess what? Our organizations will have a deficiency of leaders tomorrow. But to make real change we must identify the root of the problem.
Here are just a few reasons why organizations may have a leadership shortage.
- Leadership development is not modeled by the executive level leaders
- Leadership development is not an expectation of current leaders
- Leadership development is not systematized or intentional
- We look for ready made leaders rather than developing potential leaders
- We simply fill leadership gaps rater than develop a culture of leadership development where leaders are constantly being produced and reproduced
- We are only concerned about the here and now leadership needs of our organization rather than the long term health and viability of our organization.
- We don’t hold the development of leaders as a high value in our organization.
- We allow excuses for not developing leaders to live inside our culture.
- We fail to recognize that leadership development is a discipline that must be practiced daily.
- We only want solutions where leadership development is fast and easy BUT IT’S NOT.
What would you add to this list? What is your next step to start replenishing your leadership pipeline?
One of my next steps in replenishing my leadership pipeline is to invest more time in potential leaders on my team. I would definitely encourage them to continue their education (MBA, etc.), but I would also look for next step opportunities that will give them greater experience to be prepared for the next steps in their career/leadership paths.
Your own post, “Mac Lake