How Do You Create a Leadership Pipeline?

Who’s responsible for developing the leaders of your organization’s future? Recent research from DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast suggests that 2/3 of organizations have programs in place for identifying and developing high-potential leaders and that in 85% of those organizations senior management is responsible for identifying and developing those individuals. But it’s a tricky needle to thread for a senior management team. Four key questions help. Who? How many? How? Why? 

Scouting Leadership Talent

Scouting and developing leadership talent is the holy grail in human capital management. Leadership tops the list of CEOs’ concerns about the future, and they are wise to be concerned about it because building leadership pipelines for the future of their organizations is the only way CEOs, or any leader, can leave a legacy that outlasts their own tenure with the organization.

If you’re going to scout any kind of talent, you have to know what it looks like.

Some kinds of talent are evident early on: Beethoven composed his first symphony when he was seven, Tiger Woods was swinging a golf club before the age of two.

• What are the early signs of leadership talent? 

•  How do you know leadership talent when you see it? 

•  What does it look like?