What do you do if your organization lacks a pipeline for developing future leaders?

Build a leadership development program - start small and build from there. Ensure your program aligns with corporate objectives and provides leaders with opportunities to practice the more difficult aspects of leadership. Work with an external vendor to offer a personality assessment like Strengths Finder as the starting point for your program. Leaders should look inward, first, and then align their behaviors to organizational objectives. I find the combination of build + buy creates a well curated program for organizations.

My organization is unique in that our workforce has a wide range of past experiences in different fields and lots of varied expertise. By just talking to employees and finding out about their previous experiences I can identify areas they may be able to contribute beyond their position and in that, identify potential leaders in the organization! Having this knowledge allows me to match staff to gaps in the org and enrich jobs in the process.

Having a robust database of staff skills, accomplishments, education, and development allows me to pair opportunities with employees who have matching skills and interests. In a non-profit, it is crucial to have people working on things they have passion about, since we can't always compete in wages. When employees are excited about a project they always produce the best work and they also benefit from the encouragement and recognition of their individual strengths!

Create a multi-year Leadership Development Plan to address specific needs of different leadership layers, aligned to broader organisation objectives to equip future leaders. 1. Develop skill matrix/capability framework tailored to organisations unique needs and strategic goals with the specific skills, knowledge, and behaviours. - Ensure that your leadership development objectives are aligned with the broader strategic goals of your organisation to help prioritise development efforts and resources towards areas that will have the greatest impact. - Identify metrics to monitor the progress of your leadership development initiatives and regularly assess the effectiveness. Use this feedback to make data-driven adjustments as needed.

In my experience of developing transformational leadership and culture, I've witnessed how culture molds attitudes, behaviors, and opportunities pivotal for grooming future leaders. Here are 3 key thoughts: 1. Emphasise Continuous Learning & excellence: Cultivate a culture of ongoing learning. Support skill acquisition, trend awareness, and enable a learning agile mindset crucial in today's dynamic world. 2. Cultivate Open Communication: Foster an environment valuing open communication. Embrace constructive feedback, idea exchange, and team collaboration. Establish learning from failures and successes. 3. Champion Mentorship: Introduce structured mentorship programs for seasoned leaders to impart wisdom and insights to emerging talents.

Culture is KEY for cultivating future leadership! Staff at all levels watch the leadership in the org and if they see that those folks are over-worked, under-appreciated, or not communicating well, they will have little motivation to join their ranks or bring more to their current positions. Mentorship is also vital for leadership dev. Newer leaders need feedback on their performance in order to learn how to become great leaders - no one is born with all those skills and while they may not say it, people worry about how to handle situations and benefit greatly from being able to talk through things with an experienced leader.

When you are creating your training program, make sure to incorporate a few things. First, have a skills-based portion that focuses on providing trainees with any specific skills they will need to move up in the organization. For this part, keep in mind that everybody learns differently so provide different mediums for them to use. Second, provide a development planning portion where you work with them on how they can grow their leadership skills and soft skills. Lastly, I have found that a mentor relationship within the organization can have tremendous impact on these up and coming leaders.

In my experience, navigating a workplace where there wasn't a clear pipeline for developing future leaders posed significant challenges. To address this, we established a system to monitor progress closely. Regular check-ins allowed us to track the growth of potential leaders and adjust development plans accordingly. This proactive approach helped us cultivate a robust pipeline of future leaders capable of meeting the organization's evolving needs.

A positive and nurturing culture encourages employees to embrace learning opportunities, seek mentorship, and take on challenges, all of which are essential for leadership growth. Additionally, transparency, open communication, and collaboration provides an environment where aspiring leaders can thrive, learn from others, and develop the skills necessary for leadership roles.

Mature organisation will have succession plans, one of the essential steps to recognize and develop future leaders. Having the succession plan in place will identify the need and the existence/lack of in house talent. This has to be followed by nurturing phase and development.

A couple of things that I would like to add: a) Between assessing gaps and creating a plan, it is important to convince the leadership team and get buy in on the importance and benefits of creating a talent pipeline and succession plans. Then the leadership team needs to commit to developing and supporting a culture that will enable the identification of gaps and the focus to address them. b) There needs to be a constant communication with leaders and line managers to understand how the market and roles are evolving and what 'future ready' talent looks like. That needs to be incorporated into the development plan.