The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered...

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 224 pages
• Published by: Jossey-Bass
• Edition: 1st Edition November 1, 2000
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0787951722
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0787951726
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs: 1 pounds

Product Review
For every organization that's ever reached beyond its own borders for top leadership only to have those high-profile, high-salary top leaders bungle and exit as abruptly as they appeared, this smart, substantive, and clear-eyed book is a godsend.

Written by three genuine experts in management development (one of them helped design GE's deservedly famous succession-development process), The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company finally shows organizations how to undo the knots and clogs in their in-house "leadership pipeline" so they can constantly groom the best people at every level to move up to the next rung of leadership. Not only do the authors identify the six transition phases, or "turns," of the pipeline--from self-manager (individual worker), first-line manager, and managers' manager to function manager, business manager, group manager and enterprise manager (the last essentially being a CEO)--they describe each with remarkable insight; these six levels of leadership growth, for example, exist at the base of every midsize or large organization regardless of how each structures its individual hierarchy. With each, they take care to point out both the new skills and values (there is a difference) one must acquire before making a turn, as well as how to measure whether someone has them before moving them along. They also show how to determine whether candidates are embodying those skills and values once they've made the transition, and how to groom them for the next level right from day one.

The result? Not just one potentially qualified in-house candidate for a top leadership position (the kind of dearth that forces companies to look outward for expensive and often short-lived leadership "stars"), but a whole generation of them, not to mention younger generations to succeed them.

The book includes sample scenarios (from both fictional and real-life organizations), definitions, checklists and charts that break down and illustrate its main points in every chapter. Though shrewd and straightforward on every page, The Leadership Pipeline isn't for anyone looking an easy, step-by-step, worksheet-guided quick fix to management development and succession planning. The authors stress that it takes some hard thinking for companies to determine what they really need from leaders at each level (and to figure out which individuals have the potential and desire to scale those levels). It requires serious homework to translate this book's great guidance into a plan for your own organization's pipeline.

That's a small price to pay, however, for a book with such uncommonly clear insight into what it takes to nurture and navigate the best leadership from right inside your own house. --Timothy Murphy

From Booklist
One of management's biggest challenges is finding new leaders, and one of the questions that arises in this quest is whether to bring in "new blood" and fresh ideas or take advantage of "home-grown" experts already acclimated to an organization's corporate culture. The current labor shortage and a greater willingness by younger workers to change jobs have only added to this challenge. Recent books such as High Flyers: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders (1998) and Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People [BKL Ag 00] have weighed in on the side of "growing your own," and now Charan and his coauthors add their support. Charan is a "leadership coach" and has written extensively for academic and popular business journals. He and two fellow consultants describe the natural hierarchy of work that exists in most organizations, which takes the form of six career passages that the authors call the "leadership pipeline." For leaders to progress, they must be working within each passage at a level appropriate to their skills, values, and use of time. David Rouse
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Reader Reviews
What do General Electric, Citigroup, and Marriott International have in common? They have built on the original conceptual work by Walt Mahler at General Electric to establish sustainable methods to developing management breadth and depth. This valuable book outlines the key principles of that current best practice. At a time when more and more companies are relying on headhunters to bring in leaders and management turnover is soaring among young talent, "growing your own" leaders is about to become a necessary core competence for the future. While almost everyone who is interested in the subject has read glossy articles about what General Electric does at its Crotonville facility, this book provides the core of the broader management process behind those articles. The first part of the book focuses on six key transitions that help a leader develop. The second part shows you how to diagnose how individual leaders are doing, and how to help them make better progress. The six transitions are: from managing yourself to managing others from managing others to managing managers from managing managers to functional managing from functional managing to business managing from business managing to group managing from group managing to enterprise managing. At each transition, what the individual values and focuses on has to change dramatically. In organizations where this transition is not made explicit, you get almost all of the managers in the organization "stuck" doing things the wrong way, still looking from the perspective of their last job. That's the stuff that Dilbert and the Peter Principle are made of. Although the book takes a large organization's point of view, in various places the points are translated into a small organizational context. Based on my experience with leaders at all these levels, I certainly agree with the authors' points about the key challenges involved. I also think that their diagnostic methods are good. In most cases, the root cause for the problem lies further up in the organization with someone who is not focusing or working on helping managers develop. The key weakness of the book is that in some elements the reader with limited business experience will still not be sure what to do. For example, the step from a functional manager to a business manager requires integrating all of the functions and perspectives in order to be successful. That is an enormous leap in knowledge, expertise, and experience. Although business school cases will help those with that experience, most managers will find it impossible to make the transition unless the business is very undemanding -- something that seldom happens any more. My own experience suggests that basic learning has to be pursued throughout the organization that emphasizes skills like problem solving, locating and implementing the next generation of best practices, and developing a deep understanding of how to create superior business processes as the foundation for this kind of leadership development program. In advanced companies, you can add the concept of having people develop skills for innovating new business models. Then, this leadership development process can become truly powerful. However you decide to go about it, the examples of setbacks and progress outlined in this excellent book will improve your ability to think about improving leadership in your organization. I urge you to read, consider, and apply what you learn. After you have finished thinking about and using the book, I suggest that you also think about where else in your company you do not have a management process to do something important. For example, do you have a management process to keep you aligned with powerful trends beyond your control? Do you have a management process to create superior business models? Be all the leader you can be!