My companies and nonprofits all focus on leadership development, and for several years I’ve been called a leadership expert.3 Yet what do all of my organizations need? More good leaders. The organizations have leadership cultures, leadership vision, and leadership mentoring, yet we still need more and better leaders. Why? Because everything rises and falls on leadership. When an organization stops growing leaders, it stops growing.
I've seen this in companies before. Their strong executive team leads to success and growth. But that growth will be limited if they don't grow mid-level (and future high-level) leaders.
The executive team has to spend more time managing a growing number of direct reports and putting out fires caused (or contributed to) by a lack of effective leaders between them and the rest of the organization.
It gets even worse if any members of the executive team get fed up with the worsening conditions and leave for employment somewhere else.
Now, you're scrambling to fill an important gap on the leadership team with no one on the bench.
The only way to prevent this is to have a system for developing leaders. It's not a quick fix. It's a long term commitment to constant development, but it's the only way to keep this lack of leadership from limiting your growth.
