Have you ever wondered what would happen if you or another key executive member of your company left? Would your business crumble, or would you easily find a replacement? The truism that the success of a company largely depends on a sustainable leadership pipeline cannot be overstated. Indeed, if your business is currently doing well, it is because your leadership program has been effective.
Unfortunately, some businesses are oblivious of the existential threats they face, and they don’t invest their resources in preparing future leaders. By investing in a strong leadership pipeline, you can help your company archive immediate success and secure its future. Here are the tips you can count on to improve your leadership and people pipeline.
Look for Leadership Potential
To ensure that you have people to lead an organization in the future, your recruitment strategy needs to focus on leadership qualities. Identifying leadership qualities in job seekers can be quite a daunting task. Of course, it will be more than just asking if a candidate is a leader. To get the best people to groom for leadership, you need to assess candidates for skills or attributes associated with good leaders. For instance, good leaders have a strong sense of urgency and initiative, and they have exemplary ability to think critically and solve problems. Leaders are also known for courage and their ability to motivate other people. In a nutshell, instead of focusing on experience in your search for talent, you need to focus on leadership potential.
Mentorship and Coaching Initiatives
Leadership potential does not automatically develop into leadership. Therefore, the fact that you have hired people with the potential to become leaders does not mean that you should just wait for their leadership skills to emerge naturally. People will need to be nurtured for future leadership roles. As such, coaching and mentoring should be an important component of your leadership pipeline. In this regard, senior employees in your organization should nurture potential leaders throughout your organization. To this end, you need to have a mentoring program that gives existing leaders the responsibility to coach junior employees through informal and formal mentoring sessions.
On the Job Training
On-the-job training can go a long way in helping your organization groom new leaders. To prepare potential leaders for future leadership roles, you need to expose them to training programs that are supportive and challenging. You also need to give them more responsibilities and challenge them with new assignments and situations. This should equip them with the practical management skills they need to make decisions that will positively influence the growth of your organization.
Give Feedback
Your organization’s Leadership and people pipeline can fail if you don’t provide regular constructive feedback. Your potential leaders need to know how they are performing and whether they are meeting your expectations. They will be eager to know if they are doing a good job and if there are areas that need improvements. As such, providing feedback will go a long way in way in helping your organization’s future leaders know their progress and what they need to do to have higher potency.
Provide Fair and Consistent Rewards
Your leadership development program should also recognize the achievements of your leaders. This might be in the form of new job titles, more responsibilities, financial rewards, and even the promise of a greater stake in the future of the organization. Fair and consistent rewards will go a long way in motivating your company’s future leaders to do better, which will not only benefit your company presently but also strengthen your leadership and people pipeline.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, the future of your organization largely pended on your leadership and people pipeline. As such, you need to do your best to ensure that you have a system that supports the development of leaders at all levels of your organization. This will ensure that there are always leaders good enough to replace any outgoing executives. Do you need to develop an emerging leaders’ program or talk about how to develop a people pipeline as an organization Call Core Management Training, we can help. Contact us at kwillis@coremanagementtraining.com or call at 484.272.5138