Leadership Pipeline (Building Leadership At Every Level)

Introduction

Whether bringing senior leadership from inside or outside, you need to develop a pipeline of leadership internally, ie you need to develop staff who
"...- were prepared and have the necessary skills to be effective at the next level
    - could understand what is unique about their job, especially compared to jobs held by their boss and direct reports
    - could hold the direct reports and themselves accountable for achieving the right results in the right way..."
Stephen Drotter et al, 2001

Usually a crisis in leadership is more than just the actions of one person.

Finding the perfect senior manager does not necessarily solve the crisis.

Going outside to fill senior management positions is an admission of failure as it demonstrates the organisation has not developed a pipeline of internal leaders who can step up to the challenges.

Based on work starting in the 1970s, a 6-tier framework is used to understand the leadership requirements throughout an entire, large organisation. Each tier is an important transition in developing leaders. The tiers go from
'managing self to managing others to managing managers to function managers to business manager to group manager to enterprise manager'.
"...the pressure to spend less time on individual work and more time on managing will increase with each passage..."
Stephen Drotter et al, 2001

Each passage/tier requires changing skills, time allocation and work values.

Six Tiers/Passages of Leadership

1. Managing self to managing others (when you are young recruits and first enter an organisation, you tend to focus on your individual technical or professional skills, like sales, accounting, engineering, marketing, HR, etc
"...they contributed by doing the assigned within given time frames and in ways that meet objectives. By sharpening and broadening their individual skills, they make increased contributions..."
Stephen Drotter et al, 2001

Some skills that you learn include planning, punctuality, content, quality, reliability, etc; understanding the company's culture and professional standards; learning how to collaborate and work with others.

This transition requires behavioural changes, ie from working as an individual professionally to working with other people. You need to shift from doing the work yourselves to getting work done through others, ie how to allocate resources (including their own time), keep people accountable, etc. Also, you need to understand what managerial work means, ie planning, coaching, etc, as this now forms the basis of your performance. You must learn to make others productive.

Senior management needs to reinforce these shifts in behaviour.

2. Managing others to managing managers (the foundation for management, ie increasing management of others and divesting yourself from individual tasks plus selecting the right people to work with
"...At this point, managers must also see beyond their own job description and consider the broader strategic issues that affect the business overall..."
Stephen Drotter et al, 2001

You are becoming more accountable for managerial work rather than technical work, ie becoming less of a technocrat and more of a manager/leader.

NB Some people prefer to stay as a technocrats or individual contributors, ie Because they do not derive satisfaction from managing and leading people

Coaching is important at this tier, ie instruction-performance-feedback cycle (for more detail, see elsewhere in Knowledge Base)

3. Managing managers to managing a function (significant challenges at this tier around communication skills, understanding and supporting multi-functions (including areas unfamiliar to you); becoming a team player; understanding how your function's strategy fits within the overall organisational strategy; working with your peers from other functions; being able to delegate responsibility and accountability; needing to think and act like a functional leader rather than a functional member, ie adopt a broad, long-term perspective that gives a sustainable competitive advantage rather than just an immediate, temporary edge)

4. Functional manager to business manager (responsible for the bottom line, ie a clear link between effort and bottom-line results; usually have significant autonomy; requires your thinking to be more than just strategic; 'new, unfamiliar territory' to understand
"...not only do they have to learn to manage different functions, but they also need to be skilled and working with a wider variety of people than ever before; they need to become more sensitive to functional diversity issues and able to communicate clearly and effectively..."
Stephen Drotter et al, 2001

Learn how to balance between future goals and present needs (this includes making trade-offs between the 2)

You need to allocate thinking time, ie reserve time to reflect and analyse

5. Business manager to group manager
"...a business manager values the success of their own business; a group manager values the success of other people's businesses..."
Stephen Drotter et al, 2001

Group manager must master these skills

    i) evaluate strategy in order to allocate and deploy capital (this involves asking the right question, analysing the right data, applying the most appropriate corporate perspective to understanding which business strategy will succeed)

    ii) develop business managers (need to know which functional managers are ready to become business managers)

    iii) assessing whether your organisation's core capabilities are winners (making judgements based on objective analysis of data and information plus experience, not wishful thinking)

Need to have a broad, global perspective; think in long terms; understand the complexities of running multiple businesses; think beyond stakeholders, like community, industry, shareholders, government, etc; be able to handle VUCA (for more detail see elsewhere in the Knowledge Base)

6. Group manager to enterprise manager (ideally senior management pass through the  earlier 5 tiers; focus on values more than skills; need to be able to reinvent themselves; set the organisation direction and develop operating mechanisms to achieve short-term and long-term strategies and goals; to proactively handle internal and external stakeholders; able to prioritise and make the important decisions; fundamental shift in responsibility from strategic to visionary thinking and from operating to a global perspective; taking a holistic approach, ie running one entity rather than a portfolio of business; selecting the right team around you; possessing high emotional intelligence; needing to have a very diverse background and range of experiences that have challenged you
"...The best approach provides carefully selected job assignments that stretch people over time and allow them to learn and practise necessary skills..."
Stephen Drotter et al, 2001)

NB The above tiers are applied differently to small business, ie some of the tiers are telescoped, eg the business manager and group manager can be one; similarly, functional manager and managing managers can be one; managing oneself and managing others can be one, etc

Benefits of a pipeline

1. Hold people accountable and responsible for not just financial performance (see balanced scorecard in the Knowledge Base)

2. Forms the basis for succession planning including developing leaders

3. Individuals can see the gap between their current and desired performance, capabilities, etc

4. Where deficiency in expertise, experience, etc are identified, personalised training, etc can be developed

5. Allows for objective evaluation of what is required at the next level, rather than focusing on past performance

6. Provides a diagnostic tool that can help identify mismatches between an individual's capability and the leadership level

7. Helps identify when people are ready to move to the next level

8. The process is clearly define

Summary