Maybe We Don’t Have a Leadership Pipeline Problem. Maybe We Have a LEADERSHIP PROPOSITION Problem. We Give Them the Title. Then Teach Them How to Lead. Why?
Hear me out before anyone comes for me in the comments. 😊
I’m not anti-organization. I’m definitely not anti-Gen Z or anti-Millennial. You all matter. You all have something to contribute. And you all have the potential to lead, IF you choose to.
And perhaps I need to start with a little vulnerability of my own.
After more than 30 years with my career firmly rooted in leadership and employee development, stepping outside the corporate world has given me a very different vantage point.
Over the past 5 months, I’ve worked with or had conversations with more than 80 leaders and organizations. New leaders especially fascinate me - learning how they are feeling after their first 6 months. I’ve listened. Asked a lot of questions. Compared experiences. And quite frankly, challenged some of my own assumptions. And I’ve come to a conclusion.
Our traditional leadership development models need to evolve. Actually, I think some of them need to be completely turned on their HƎAD. Because after 30+ years in this field, I’m increasingly convinced that our biggest problem may not be WHAT we’re teaching leaders.
It’s WHEN we’re teaching it.
I keep seeing two challenges:
1️⃣ People aren’t necessarily lining up to become leaders.
I am digging into lots of research on this to understand the WHY? (more to come on that).
We can call it generational. We can question ambition. But maybe we’re asking the wrong question.
Instead of asking, “Why don’t they want to lead?” perhaps we should be asking:
“Have we made leadership something people actually want to step into?”
Because when aspiring leaders look up, they often see more pressure, more responsibility, more difficult conversations, greater accountability and less time.
Maybe they’re not saying, “I don’t want to grow.” Maybe they’re saying: “I’m not sure I want THAT.”
And here’s the second challenge.
2️⃣ When someone DOES choose leadership, we often develop them too late.
We take a great individual contributor and promote them because they excelled at what they did. Then Monday morning arrives. They’re now responsible for people. And the message is essentially:Go lead. Go figure it out. (aka Sink or Swim)
Perhaps six months later we send them to leadership development.
But think about that... By then, they’ve already been leading for six months.
They’ve formed habits. Struggled with delegation. Navigated former peers. Had, or avoided, difficult conversations. Started defining who they are as a leader.
WHY are we waiting until AFTER someone becomes a leader to teach them how to become one?
It feels like we are giving a captain their compass halfway through the voyage when they’ve already been steering through storms without it.
What if we moved development upstream? Explore → Prepare → Promote → Coach → Reinforce
Let people understand and experience what leadership really entails before they decide whether it’s for them. Develop aspiring leaders before the promotion (when feasible of course). And when they do step into leadership, surround them with coaching and just-in-time development during those criticalfirst 90 days.
Not sink or swim. Not “We’ll train you eventually.” Instead: If you choose to lead here, we’re going to invest in helping you succeed from the beginning.”
Maybe that changes more than leadership effectiveness. Maybe it makes leadership itself more attractive.
After 30+ years in this field, I’m increasingly convinced that one of our biggest opportunities isn’t changing WHAT we teach leaders. It’s changing WHEN we start.
I’m currently developing what I’m calling a Pink Paper on this topic. Why pink? Because if I’m going to challenge traditional leadership development models, I might as well challenge the traditional white paper too. 😉
I’m also developing a proposal to help organizations rethink how we develop and support aspiring and newly appointed leaders, starting before the promotion and continuing through those critical first 90 days.
But before I polish my thinking and call anything “final,” I really want to hear what others are seeing.
Leaders. Aspiring leaders. HR and talent professionals. People who have chosen not to pursue leadership. Your perspective matters to this conversation.
Please message me privately. I’d genuinely value hearing it.
So here’s the question I’d love you to weigh in on:
What would need to change to make you, or the talented people in your organization, want to say YES to leadership?
