Free Book Summary : The Leadership Pipeline This article is based on the following book: How to Build the Leadership-Powered Company By Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, and James Noel Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2001 ISBN 0-7879-5172-2 242 pages

THE BIG IDEA

There is a growing need to develop leaders within many corporations.  The demand for leaders greatly outpaces the supply.  With this reality comes an even greater challenge-- to bring in a “new blood” for fresh ideas or to just maximize the expertise of the “home grown” talents.

This book sheds light into this concern by introducing the leadership pipeline model— the series of levels leaders go through in every organization. Understanding its nature and unclogging these particular pipelines greatly help organizations find and develop people inside the company to become the future leaders of the corporation. 

The Leadership Pipeline Model
The Leadership Pipeline model provides a framework upon which organizations can be built and the old ones can be reconfigured. This entails a series of passages that come with very specific values, compulsory skills, and necessary time requirements. There are six important passages in the leadership model that need to be recognized. Failure to recognize the leadership passages in the company will result to a clog in the leadership pipeline.

• Managing Self to Managing Others

The first passage is from managing Self to managing Others. This passage occurs when a person gets promoted to First line manager.  The skills required in this position often include planning work, assigning jobs, motivating, coaching, and measuring the jobs of others. Though these skills are all easily learned, first-line managers often encounter difficulties in the change of values required to effectively manage others.

• Managing Others to Managing Managers

The second passage is from managing Others to managing Managers. This passage in the leadership pipeline is often ignored due to the assumption that managing others and managing other managers are quite similar. It is important to note that the two are entirely different tasks.  Managing managers is a more crucial task and requires the key ability to identify who has the potential to be good leaders.  Failure to do so can lead to holding first-line managers for technical work instead of managerial work. This then creates a clog in the leadership pipeline and eventually affects the performance of the organization.

• Managing Managers to Functional Managers

The third passage is from managing Managers to Functional managers. This passage is a much tougher transition because it requires an increase in managerial maturity. This means he has to learn to let go of previous management work, and instead focus on the functions of the business. The manager also needs to take on a more holistic approach and strategic mindset. This is required for creating functional strategies for the company and managing the whole function of the business.

• Functional Managers to Business Managers

The fourth passage is from Functional managers to Business managers. This passage is the most fulfilling and the most satisfying among all the passages because it gives the manager more control and say about the company operations and strategies.

Though truly enjoyable, this position also requires a major shift in skills, time applications, and work values. Neglecting these qualities ultimately results to problems such as not valuing and using staff functions, failure to direct and energize finance, and other challenges that may negatively affect the business.

• Business Managers to Group Managers

The fifth passage is from Business managers to Group managers. This particular passage places value in the success of other people’s businesses. This focuses on group of businesses, not just one. Therefore, a Group manager is required to become more proficient at evaluating strategies, developing and coaching business managers, creating a portfolio strategy, and correctly assessing the right core capabilities to succeed. The point is to see the company issues in the broadest terms possible. Failure to acquire these skills ultimately results to failure in supporting the business managers.

• Group Managers to Enterprise Managers

The sixth and final passage is from Group managers to Enterprise managers. These are the CEOs and presidents of the companies. This passage focuses more on values and skills because this position requires a visionary leader. Enterprise Managers would have to let go of the individual products and customers, and see the whole picture. Usually, they are required to set three or four priority goals, and focus on implementing the strategies for these goals. The biggest problem in this passage is that Enterprise managers often fail to change their values and mindset. Hence, it is very difficult to develop a CEO for this transition.

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