Vijay Bankar

Every year we see surveys carried out by HBR, PWC, Deloitte, and Gartner, and major concerns for management as highlighted at the top of the list are factors such as: developing bench strength, leadership pipeline, and leadership readiness. The following quote describes the importance of Leadership. “The first lesson is: To hell with centralized strategic planning. If you don't have a good leader, it's all nothing; it's just a bunch of papers flying around.” - Robert Townsend Developing Leadership pipeline has always been an important concern for HR Professionals. Moreover, getting a proper candidate for replacement is usually a very demanding task because that results in disturbing smooth flow of business. As Pam Brown says, “Every household has a box of odd keys. None of them will ever be found to fit any lock.” This happens when we are looking for leadership candidate from the internal talent pool. Hence, to maintain the flow of business, HR professionals h...

A report on “ Global Human Capital Trends 2014 ” (pdf) prepared by  Deloitte , which surveyed 2,532 business and HR leaders in 94 countries concludes that the most important and urgent concern for HR professionals today is developing “leadership” pipeline to achieve strategic objectives. In fact, it has appeared as ‘ highly urgent’  at number one in the list of concerns followed by ‘Retention and engagement’, and ‘Reskilling HR’. The report states that “Building global leadership is by far the most urgent: Fully 38 percent of all respondents rated it “urgent,” almost 50 percent more than the percentage rating the next issue “urgent.” Companies see the need for leadership at all levels, in all geographies, and across all functional areas. This continuous need for new and better leaders has accelerated.” Now, as an HR professional we have two choices available, first, recruiting from other organizations and second, proactively develop leadership pipel...