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The Leadership PipelineHow to Build the Leadership-Powered Company.By Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, and James Noel. Jossey-Bass, 2001. ISBN 0-7879-5172-2 |
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This book gives an overview of leadership training imperatives, as well as simple models for leadership training. The authors balance prescription (solutions), diagnosis (what is wrong?), and theory (what could happen) in an easy to read format with examples and diagrams where appropriate.
In a nutshell, The Leadership Pipeline explains that leadership development cannot be applied evenly across organizations. Leaders at different stages of their careers need to develop different skills and values. While the authors do not give concrete diagnostic tools, they do provide an exciting paradigm based on “passages” that could lead to more effective succession planning.
As leaders develop, according to the authors, their contribution to the organization also changes. This maps well to Tannenbaum and Likert’s work on the changing roles of managers in organizations, becoming more theoretical and strategic higher up the corporate ladder. Charan, Drotter, and Noel prescribe specific developmental activities as leaders are promoted through the pipeline, as explained in Chapter 1.
In my view, this book is a brave departure from the one-size-fits-all leadership development that is often prescribed to help organization and people. However, implementing such a program in organizations, large or small, would be a major undertaking, so readers will need to adapt The Leadership Pipeline to their own needs. Organizations need a leadership development program that is fast and flexible, and The Leadership Pipeline as prescribed by the authors is based on leaders slowly moving lock-step through the passages.
A drawback from the book is a feeling that each chapter was written independently. In fact, this is really three books in one, different parts written by each of the authors. Tying the chapters together is easy, but the authors could have done a better job of creating a continuous flow of ideas leading to a conclusion.
In my estimation, in a world where the average tenure in a company is reducing and the most effective people are becoming free agents, this type of leadership development model will need some serious adaptation when applied in the new economy. That said, it is an excellent and thought-provoking read – bravo to Charan, Drotter, and Noel.