UK businesses are failing to plan their future leadership pipeline, according to new research by people management business Penna.
The poll of 1,000 senior professionals revealed that 63 percent do not know if their organisation has plans in place for future leadership, or are not actively planning a pipeline for building leaders.
Penny de Valk, managing director of Penna’s Talent Practice, said:
“It’s concerning how many organisations are failing to plan their leadership pipeline. At a time when leadership capability is a precious commodity and critical to an organisation’s success, we need to get better at succession planning and developing leaders at all levels.
“Building a leadership pipeline means being able to spot and develop potential and companies that are doing this well have a real source of competitive advantage.”
This trend is further supported by Deloitte’s 2015 Global Human Capital Trends report, which found that despite ‘building leadership’ remaining paramount within organisations – little or no progress has been made in the last year. In fact, the capability gap for building great leaders has widened not just in the UK, but globally.
Penny de Valk added:
“Considering that 30 percent of investor’s decision making is based on quality of leadership organisations are taking a real gamble with not planning. Investing the time in planning leadership pipelines now will help organisations reduce the risk of future leadership shortfalls acting as a drag on business growth.
“This investment shouldn’t be limited to succession planning within just the top team either. A strong pipeline should consider talent from across the entire organization – after all, among junior teams could be budding future leaders and it is critical that their potential isrecognised.”
Steff joined the HRreview editorial team in November 2014. A former event coordinator and manager, Steff has spent several years working in online journalism. She is a graduate of Middlessex University with a BA in Television Production and will complete a Master's degree in Journalism from the University of Westminster in the summer of 2015.
