Five Myths About the Leadership Pipeline Concept

“You need not to look at the organization in terms of cut-and-dried hierarchy.”

This is the first in a five-part series dispelling myths about the Leadership Pipeline. You will see, from stories and examples, how some misunderstand key aspects of the concept, and how we have successfully worked to turn those misunderstandings around.

Myth #1: The Leadership Pipeline is a hierarchical concept

No, it is the opposite. The Leadership Pipeline principles break down hierarchies! But let me start elsewhere.

The Story

Recently, I was at a meeting with a CHRO. At the meeting was also the head of leadership development and a L&D specialist. The CHRO was newly appointed and the meeting was set up because she wanted to revisit their current approach to leadership development.

After the introductions and some polite chit chat, she told me straight, “I am concerned about the Leadership Pipeline concept as we are not a hierarchical organization.”

First of all, as a client manager, the best argument is the one you can avoid…. But even if I wanted to argue against her statement then where do you start in this when it makes absolutely no sense?

I learned early in my career that the customer is always right. At a later course in “self-directed development” I learned that you always have to stay true to yourself and authentic in the moment. In the above case I could not combine these two things, so I chose the latter.

“I am not exactly aware of your new HR agenda so perhaps this is a fair point,” I said (always appreciating the perspective of the other person). “But if you allow, I could maybe ask you a couple of questions to better understand your perspective.” She allowed me that opportunity.

“Charlotte is the L&D specialist. Tell me, who does she report to?” The CHRO responded, “to the head of leadership development.” “Okay then, who does he report to?” She answered, “to the VP of talent, leadership and performance.” “Okay, as I understand, this VP reports to you?” “Yes,” she said. “And I guess you designed this set-up?” “Yes, together with my direct reports and some stakeholders.” “But you had the final say?” “Yes,” she responded.

I continued “So just in Group HR, with about 60 people, you have four layers of people? It seems to me that you are a quite hierarchically oriented person.” I was hoping that she would laugh a little and see the irony, but she did not. So I continued. “Look, the leadership pipeline concepts does not build hierarchies. Managers do. The leadership pipeline principles support leaders making a successful transition into whatever leadership role they assume.”

“In your case, you are a functional manager. You have managers of managers reporting to you and you have managers of others reporting to them. But the Leadership Pipeline concept did not force this upon you. For whatever reason, this is how you personally designed your organization. All we can offer is to support you make your organization deliver what you need it to deliver.”

The Lesson

The Leadership Pipeline concept does not build hierarchies. Managers do.

Now here is the irony. The one major challenge we often face when we implement the leadership pipeline principles is that we challenge the existing hierarchy within the organization!

Many organizations tend to organize leadership assessment and development based on titles and/or organizational layers. The Leadership Pipeline, however, looks at the job that needs to get done – not the titles or organizational layer. The leadership pipeline principles looks at the organization from a leadership role perspective - not a hierarchical perspective.

Another Example

I would like to use the role of managers of managers as an example.

As a manager of managers, you deliver results through other managers. If you lead a unit of 40 people, then you are only one out of 40. Hence, 97.5 percent of the output from the unit comes from the teams reporting to you. You deliver by building an efficient unit that drives productivity, efficiency and alignment across the value chain. You achieve results by recruiting and developing the right leaders to work for you and by holding them accountable for being good leaders. You create space for your teams to deliver by effectively managing value dependencies between your unit and the rest of the organization as well as break down silos and facilitate a free flow of information and ideas across the teams. 

This is a short version of the key leadership work that needs to get done by managers of managers.

Some managers of managers report directly to a functional manager. In larger organizations you may have multiple layers of managers of managers so some of them report to others in the same situation. In other organizations managers of managers may both have managers and individual contributors reporting to them.

Managers of managers also have a range of different titles. I have seen titles like senior vice president, vice president, director, general manager, country manager, production manager, or site manager. Even within one company you will often find multiple different titles for different managers of managers.

But at the end of the day, the way they create unique value as leaders, as described above, overlaps by 80-90%.

We are not arguing against having different titles for the same leadership role. There can be good reasons for this. But, when it comes to leadership assessment and leadership development, you will benefit from focusing on the job at has to get done rather than hierarchy and titles.

So back to the irony comment above.

When we are part of implementing the leadership pipeline principles, we often face a situation where a manager of managers with a vice president title will attend same leadership training as a manager of manager with a director title. The vice president is not always happy with this. They like to see themselves as more important or above the director. With the role-based approach, they are not. We, on the other hand argue, “you need not to look at the organization in terms of cut-and-dried hierarchy.”

So now you can see my surprise about the comment from the CHRO above.

Conclusions

In our view it is critical to apply a role based perspective to leadership rather than a hierarchically perspective. Leaders are defined by the job that needs to get done – not their title or organizational layer.

You will find that many leaders also have different roles during the day or week. How is that?

In many organizations, managers of managers may both have managers and individual contributors reporting to them. In this case they have to operate as manager og others when they talk to their individual contributors and manager of manager when they talk to the managers reporting to them.

You will also find that most manager of others both have to operate as manager of other and individual contributors.

This is the nature of life. The important thing is just that they know when they have to play which role and that they understand the difference of the role. Leadership agility is when leaders seamlessly are able to step in and out of different roles during the day.

If you want to break down hierarchies, you need to stop looking at titles and organizational layers. Instead, you need to look at the different leadership roles you have represented and the job that needs to get done in these roles.