PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS

Talent Management Perspectives

Published June 2007

Stacking the Bench: Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders

Tegan Jones

As businesses scramble to attract and retain top talent in today's competitive marketplace, they often neglect to secure the future leaders they will need to meet tomorrow's challenges. Hoping they'll be able to address leadership issues as they arise, many leaders choose to focus on more-immediate challenges rather than worry about who will take over once they are gone.

Although this practice is common, it's not economically sound, said Ron Carucci, author of "Leadership Divided: What Emerging Leaders Need and What You Might Be Missing" and founding partner of Passages Consulting. Many businesses are putting their future success at risk by failing to make leadership development a top priority, he said.

"Most people leave it to chance on the hopes that people will rise to the top when they need them," he said. "Most companies are so busy trying to fill today's needs, they haven't even gotten the chance to think about tomorrow's."

Yet, to experience sustainable success, companies need to create a leadership pipeline that extends far into the future.

Bringing on new people as they're needed can help a business meet its goals and avert a leadership crisis, but it won't help the business compete in a market in which products and technology can be quickly and easily replicated, Carucci said. Rather, he said companies need leaders with specialized knowledge that can come only from years of hands-on industry experience.

"The only way to get a strong hold on the market is if you have deep, deep knowledge of it," he said. "And the only way to get deep knowledge of a market is to have people who have gained that knowledge over time. If you don't have a deepening pool of talent, a deepening bench of leadership that's growing from within, you're never going to gain maturity as an organization."

Additionally, Carucci said many businesses use succession planning techniques to attempt to secure their future, but these processes are often flawed. The standard practice of making secret lists of high-potential candidates is no longer applicable in an environment in which emerging leaders have the power to jump among organizations at any time.

Instead, today's leaders have to open up the succession planning conversation to their younger colleagues if they want them to have a place in the organization's future. Because these future leaders are often unsure about their career paths, discussing their options and giving them the chance to experiment and test their skills is critical to their retention, Carucci said.

"When the future is a routine part of people's conversations, you see people stepping up all the time and wanting to volunteer to do more," he said. "Emerging leaders need to feel like they're contributing to what matters."

Companies also need to change their leadership development practices if they want to retain tomorrow's top talent. The next generation's leaders are excited for their chance to take charge, but they want to do it on their own terms. When they are offered the chance to become younger versions of today's leaders, most of these young workers will decline, Carucci said.