How Strong is Your Leadership Bench?

Category: Influence Savvy

Many times the coaches with the stronger benches are more successful. And with more and more talk about the need for the leaders of organizations to also be great coaches, it is interesting to consider the sports analogy of building a bench with that of planning for future leaders of your organization.

So many organizations are very sophisticated in how they control their financials and their processes. Yet the same organizations may fall down in developing one of their most important assets – people. And people are the ones who drive those numbers and processes. Many organizations unfortunately look at their “bench strength” only when there is an opening.

Developing strong leadership at the top of the organization should not be a reaction; it should be a continual process that is driven by the people at the top of the organization. It should be a culture within the organization that focuses on developing talent at all levels of the organization, and especially putting people in position to take the key positions of leadership when they become available. But unfortunately, all too many times, the selection process is a knee jerk response to an unanticipated opening. Then, the person taking the position may not have all the skills needed for the position. Talk about setting up the organization for failure, or at least a few hiccups!

So, how do we develop that bench?

First, start by identifying the key positions in the organization. When you select these positions, it is important to determine that they are mission critical to the success of the organization. These positions would include the president and CEO, and most likely, key direct reports.

Once these key positions are identified, there should be common agreement all on the skill sets, attitudes and aptitudes that are required for each of those positions. Sometimes, these are referred to as “competencies” or other lingo. Essentially it is what are the skills that are needed to do a magnificent job in these positions?

Having identified the mission-critical positions and their skill sets, it becomes a much easier job to identify the bench – the people who have potential to fill these positions over time, and to identify big gaps in their current skill levels and the desired skill levels of these mission-critical positions.

Enter the process of developing your bench. This is where an organization can creatively and actively use various methods to enable “the bench” to master the skills that are needed for them to be a future leader of the organization.

Whether it is classroom training, job switching, project assignments, coaching, mentoring, eat – learning, the candidates will grow with each new experience.

Why is it that so many companies fall down all in this mission-critical opportunity? My guess is that you will find people in the upper levels of most organizations talking a good game about their leadership development, but when it comes to the actual culture, and what is actually being practiced, you may find something very different.

In the organizations that are successfully developing their benches, there are regular checkpoints with the candidates. Progress is tracked. And candidates are continually challenged to take on new and different opportunities, so that they can experience the skill development that is needed to have a bench for these positions. And yes, the candidates know who they are. It is not a secret list chosen by the CEO.

One of the key elements in the evaluation of the candidates is their initiative and passion about developing themselves. This is not something that just the organization or the mentors provide for these candidates. So, even though they have been selected and are sitting on the “leadership bench,” it is really up to them to drive their own leadership development with the support of the organization

I recently got a panic phone call from someone wanting to hire me as her coach. The CFO position was opening up, and she, as the controller, wanted to work with me to assure that she would get the job. The company had already announced that they were also going to interview candidates from the outside. Hmmm… interesting succession plan. We worked together, and did several strategic actions to help her be top of mind. But had we been working together in advance of the opening or had she been developing herself for that opening, or, had the company had an active succession plan in place, the issue of who would be the replacement may have been much easier for that organization to decide. (Ultimately, hooray, she got the job—couldn’t keep you hanging…)

Many successful organizations have selection processes to establish their list of candidates. It is key to place people on this committee to assure that these folks are unbiased and fair in their selections. They also need to select based on the skills needed, rather than longevity with the organization or other factors unrelated to their actual ability to perform in mission-critical positions.

When you have this type of mindset in place, filling open positions can be an opportunity that the organization celebrates, rather than fears. It is essentially pro-active form of succession planning. Through the regular development of these candidates, ideally, they should be able to walk into the new positions without skipping a step.

So, how many skipped steps will you have the next time one of your top positions comes available, coach?