3 Steps to Creating an Internal Path for New Leaders

Brief 

Develop an internal pipeline for new leaders in your organization by looking for confident, responsible team members, providing a transparent process for advancement and giving them permission to voice their opinions and ideas, writes Rashan Dixon. “Current leaders should embrace a growth mindset that is open to regularly assessing business activity, identifying issues and pivoting to make adjustments — all while inviting future leaders in on the process,” Dixon writes.

Insight

The Great Resignation is taking its toll on workplaces across every industry. The struggle to maintain staff and C-suite alike is harder now than it’s been in decades. As the talent pool shrinks and skill gaps grow, it’s important for companies to develop internal talent pipelines to meet ongoing needs — especially when it comes to leadership.

There are many traditional pieces of advice for this process. Create internal pathways to leadership. Curate learning opportunities. Provide coaching and mentorship programs. However, in the evolving 21st-century workplace, leaders must think beyond these formulaic past approaches. Here are three critical aspects to consider if you want to develop effective internal leadership pipelines.

1. Really invest the time

It’s no secret that to develop internal leaders, you need to identify them at some point along the way. Even so, many leaders don’t invest genuine time in this process. They follow their gut or look for obvious external signs, like how someone dresses.

If you want to be effective in fostering future leaders, you need to look deeper than the surface. The way someone dresses or acts can say a lot about their leadership qualities. But in the remote-friendly, casual-first modern office, it can be hard to identify leaders purely through these traditional criteria.

At times, you’ll need to be a bit more purposeful in your analysis. As you do this, look for consistent quiet behaviors that indicate certain soft skills, or life skills as they are sometimes referred to. Here are a few questions to ask yourself: