Part of the employee lifecycle — the Develop stage. This is a strategic framework overview; the detailed how-to lives in the clusters it links to (employer operations, HR metrics, templates, hiring process and more).
This framework page links to succession planning and development plans, which leadership development feeds.
Why it matters
The quality of management drives engagement, performance and retention across whole teams, so developing leaders multiplies impact. It also builds the bench that succession depends on, reducing key-person risk.
Neglecting it tends to surface as turnover under weak managers and gaps when leaders leave.
Objectives
- Identify and grow current and potential leaders.
- Build core management capability deliberately.
- Reduce key-person and leadership-gap risk.
- Connect leadership growth to succession.
Common challenges
- Promoting strong individual contributors with no management support.
- Treating leadership as innate rather than learnable.
- No bench, so leadership gaps become crises.
- Developing leaders in theory but not on real responsibility.
Key activities
- Spot leadership potential early.
- Provide management capability-building and coaching.
- Give stretch leadership responsibility with support.
- Link leadership development to succession plans.
Best practices
- Support new managers, don’t just promote and hope.
- Develop leaders on real responsibility, not only courses.
- Build a bench before you need it.
- Tie leadership development to succession and key-role risk.
Common mistakes
- Promoting to management with no support.
- Assuming leadership can’t be developed.
- Waiting for a gap before building leaders.
- All theory, no real responsibility.
Measure this stage with the employee development metrics metric, put it into practice with the employee development plan template, and run it as a system via succession planning.
Free, printable HR resources
Lifecycle work runs on practical resources. These are free and ungated — no signup.