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Senior Leader's Role in Developing a Strong Pipeline in Organization

Conference Paper · November 2014

DOI: 10.13140/2.1.1386.5923

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 Senior Leader’s Role in Developing a Strong Pipeline in
Organization

Sakinah Muslim1, Shireen Haron2 and Rugayah Hashim3

1
Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia
sakinah@uum.edu.my
2
Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia
shireen738@salam.uitm.edu.my
3
Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia
gy@salam.uitm.edu.my

Abstract
Leadership development and succession planning have been widely
discussed and studied with a varying focus. In recent times, many
academicians and researchers have made significant contributions in
the theories and practice of leadership development and succession
planning. Theses efforts are the most promising means of assuring
the sustainability which is vital to the long-term success of an
organisation. However, leadership development is an area that is
insufficient within institutions of higher education. This paper
discusses the senior leader’s of public institutions of higher
education’s role in developing a strong pipeline in organization. It also
examine the challenges of senior leaders involvement and
recommends some efforts that need to be taken.

Field of research: Human Resource Planning

Introduction
The essences of succession planning includes identification and development for key
positions (Rothwell, 2010). Meanwhile, Hart, Conklin and Allen (2008) defined
leadership development as a process of expanding an organization‟s capacity to
generate leadership potential within the organization to achieve organizational goals.
Therefore, developing future leaders is critically important in succession planning and
leadership development. In best-practice organization, senior leaders seem to be in
the lead role to develop potential leaders (Morrison, 2011).

Research on leadership development strongly and consistently supports the notion

that regardless of actual developmental methods, the acquisition of leadership skills
is facilitated by visible senior leaders commitment and involvement (Tichy, 1997;
2012; Cacioppe, 1998a; Groves, 2007). According to Molinaro and Weiss (2005),
among best-practice organizations they have studied, they found that senior leaders
see leadership development as their priority. In addition, organizational culture that
values learning and development is useful to achieve shared goals (Groves, 2007;
Van Velsor et al., 2010). Hence, the aim of this conceptual paper is to explore the
senior leader‟s role and to discuss the challenges to ensure their involvement and
participation give meaningful contribution in developing leadership pipeline.

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This is a conceptual review of the importance of senior leader‟s role. The paper
discusses the senior leader‟s of public institutions of higher education‟s role in
developing a strong pipeline in organization. It also examine the challenges of senior
leaders‟ involvement and recommends some efforts that need to be taken.

Senior leader’s involvement and participation

By cultivating existing talent internally, companies will keep skilled employees
longer, decrease training costs, and reduce or eliminate hiring cycles (Kristick, 2009).
In this effort, organization must fully engage and utilize senior leaders in the process.
They cannot be just “organisational celebrities” who pass briefly through the program
and delegate the task to human resource department. This level of participation
does not fully utilise the expertise and experience senior leaders have. In other
words, this level of participation does not allow the strategic issues to be explored
and understood (Cacioppe, 1998a).

Many have touted the importance of senior leaders in leadership development

initiatives. Allio (2003) and Brown (2010) assert that the principle job of a leader and
the important competency that leaders should have is to help develop the next
generation of leaders. Tichy (1997) notes that to be a true leader, leaders must
develop future leaders. This task will ensure organization‟s sustainability. Thus,
involvement and participation of senior leaders in the succession planning and
leadership development programme is vital (Tropiano, 2004; Cacioppe, 1998). In
fact, development efforts are more successful when senior leaders not only own, but
also demonstrate interest and ongoing involvement in succession planning and
development (Bunker et al., 2010).

Senior leaders participation and support is one of the characteristics of effective

succession (Rothwell, 2010). It should also be noted that the National Academy of
Public Administration (NAPA) mentions that the first benchmark principle for
managing succession and developing leaders is personal involvement and deep
commitment from top organizational leaders (Tropiano, 2004). Without commitment
and the involvement of leadership to the development of potential leaders, it will be
impossible to succeed in these efforts (Fulmer, Gibbs and Goldsmith, 2000) and
future leaders may not commit to the program (Conger and Fulmer, 2003). This
scenario is supported by recent Bersin and Associates research that shows three
time greater business impact generated by senior leaders who coach and develop
employees than those who do not (Anonymous, 2011).

Given the scrutiny of the leadership development initiatives, there is a need for senior
leaders to spend as much as one third of their time developing the organisation‟s
leaders in formal programs (Tichy, 2012). There are a few reasons behind this
suggestion:
a) During the leadership development program, participants are receptive to new
ideas and directions. If future leaders get all this thing from the top leaders of the
organisation, it will gives power, support and the thinking behind the new directions
and behaviours required.

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b) Senior leaders as teachers in the program assess the changing realities of the
ideas and modify them to be relevant and fit the needs of the current setting. They
can select ideas that add significant value to the organisation.
c) They provide frameworks for the decisions of managers in an organization. They
give a focus for common goals and actions which can be implemented back in the
work environment (Cacioppe, 1998a).
These reasons may help to answer the importance of senior leaders role in
leadership development initiatives.

In line with the organization‟s awareness of the importance of the role played by
senior leaders, they are increasingly engaging managerial personnel in the
leadership development process, and that managers add unique value to building the
leadership pipeline beyond that of external experts and other professionals (Tichy,
2004; Allio, 2003). Several large corporations are taking senior management leaders
to the next level by having senior leaders conduct the leadership development
initiatives themself. For instance, former CEO of PepsiCo, Roger Enrico, spent 100
days a year running Pepsi‟s leadership development program for top management.
Similarly, General Electric‟s (GE) John F. Welch Leadership Center, a
comprehensive development program in which executives and managers at all levels
are largely responsible for teaching the curriculum and delivering a range of
leadership development activities (Tichy, 1989). Mort Topfer, vice chairman of the
board of Dell was involved not only as executive sponsor, but as par ticipant,
instructor, coach, and cheerleader in their leadership development program (Winston,
2008). Scientific-Atlantic, a high tech company implemented the Leaders
Developing Leaders Mentoring Program. The mentors that participate in the
program are the organization‟s top leaders (Salopek, 2004). Other organizations
have taken and are taking this same kind of initiative such as Compaq,
Servicemaster‟s, Hewlett-Packard‟s, Johnson & Johnson, and Shell (Fulmer et al.,
2000; Hurt and Homan, 2005).

There are a few scholars who discussed the role that should be played by senior
leaders. For instance, Cohn, Khurana and Reeves (2005) assert that, a part of the
line manager‟s role is recognizing her subordinates‟ developmental needs, helping
them develop new skills, and providing them with opportunities for professional and
personal growth. They need to mentor emerging leaders both within and outside of
their own department, disseminating key knowledge and offering evaluations and
feedback. Basically, leadership commitment and involvement can be translated into a
number of functions as follows.

a) Preparation activities
The starting point for leadership development is preparation activities. In this regard,
senior leaders must identify development opportunities that are crucial to leadership
development (Leibman, Bruer and Maki, 1996). In addition, Harris and Barnes (2006)
shared their experience on how Lilly Research Laboratories encourage and
supported deep engagement of senior leaders in leadership development. They play
roles in preparation activities by shaping strategy and focus on implementation,
assess needs and gap in leadership pipeline.

3
b) Teaching
Normally, organization will hire or invite professors and consultant leadership trainers
to develop future leaders. However, Allio (2003) claims that they are not the right
people to develop leaders. Senior leaders leaders are in best position to teach
future leaders . They are the people who are able to provide the best insights into the
unwritten rules of the organization, help navigate employees around potential issues,
and provide encouragement (Zenger and Folkman, 2003). In fact, history has proven
that great leaders are also great teachers (Cacioppe, 1998; Tichy, 2012).

Active role in teaching future leaders is the hallmarks of winning companies.

Research on leadership development programs at leading companies‟ supports the
notion that managers must play an active role in developing the next generation of
leaders through teaching experiences with high potential employees (Tichy, 2004).
Past literature recorded that, experienced and accomplished leaders in winning
organizations teach people to be effective leaders (Cohen and Tichy, 1997;
Cacioppe, 1998; Tichy, 2012). Pollit (2007) explained experience of Capital One
University developing “leaders as teacher” approach in order ensure knowledge and
the skills of senior leaders are being fully utilised. They become executive speaker
series, business-leader workshops, short session on particular expertise, delivering
training programme particular subject areas and involvement in particular session on
training programme. In addition, Harris and Barnes (2006) shared their experience on
how Lilly Research Laboratories encourage and supported deep engagement of
senior leaders in leadership development. They become faculty member for a core
program, and share their experience and participate in various leadership
development programs.

The leading organization also encourages senior leaders to teach classes and
facilitate workshops on a series of leadership development topics. Groves (2007) in
his study of 30 CEOs and human resource executives across 15 best practice
organizations found that leading organizations actively encourage learning and
knowledge sharing by tasking their leaders with teaching responsibilities. The
teaching process actively reinforces the value of learning, encourages the effective
dissemination of knowledge, and helps employees understand how they may apply
such knowledge to their work and collectively influence important outcomes in the
organization.

Tichy (2012) claims that the secret of successful organization is their leaders
personally and actively develop leaders. In addition, senior leaders must have a
“teachable point of view”, a point of view that they were committed to, that involved a
dynamic, compelling vision or story of where the organisation is going and how it is
going to get there. They should orchestrate open and candid discussion. They
teach, conduct a discussion and informal interaction. This way, they can pass their
experience to future leaders.

4
c) Developmental relationship
Usually delivered through coaching and mentoring, developmental relationship is an
essential initiatives in leadership development. Internal mentoring and coaching has
a significant impact on the development of emerging leaders. Basically, senior
leaders should mentor and showcase potential leaders (Leibman et al. 1996). Mullen
(2009) describes mentor as the “a guide who opens up others to new experiences
and the world, and who encourages and protects protégés” (2009, p.10). A majority
of leading firms use internal mentoring programs to develop high-potential
employees. Through pairing with internal senior mentors, high-potentials are
introduced to years of knowledge and experience. Leading firms use both internal
and external coaches to address specific developmental needs or to help action
learning groups as they grapple with complex challenges (Fulmer, Stumpf and Bleak,
2009).

Groves (2007) recommended that organization must develop the organization‟s

mentor network. This effort can be implemented by fully engaging all managers in
mentoring relationships with direct reports and high potential employees. This
initiatives can effectively build their leadership pipeline.

d) Experiential learning
It's very effective to pair classroom training with real-life exposure to a variety of jobs
and bosses-using techniques like job rotation, special assignments "action learning"
(Conger and Fulmer, 2003). According to Leibman et al. (1996), senior leaders
should manage developmental opportunities for potential leaders. In this regard,
senior leaders must arrange assignments that are challenging, critical and significant.
Managers at all levels are engaged in delivering leadership development activities
such as facilitating action learning projects, and creating assignments that fall
outside the employee‟s functional background (Groves, 2007).

Senior leaders, with the support of human resource professionals, deliver the
projects, assignments, and courses. Regarding stretch assignments, the executives
reported that the many developmental benefits include exposing high potentials to
several functional and product areas, providing invaluable working experiences with a
variety of executives and colleagues, and collecting diagnostic data on high
potentials‟ performance to inform the succession planning decisions. As managers‟
developmental needs change over the course of their career, executives task them
with stretch assignments that address the organization‟s strategic issues and adjust
the lists of high potentials according to their performance on such assignments
(Groves, 2007).

Other related roles

a) Sponsorship
Sponsorship refers to a person or persons who encouraged and provided a critical
opportunities for the individual on the journey to become leader (Kambil, 2010). It is
suggested that sponsors be selected to assist future leaders in advancing within the
organization (Friday, Friday and Green, 2004). Kambil (2010) emphasized a model of

5
„„sponsorship‟‟ in leadership development. This approach empowered to directly invite
an aspiring leader to a task or role often outside their immediate skill or task base, to
provide a critical learning and leadership development experience. Ideal sponsors
are also willing to use their political capital in an organization, when necessary, to
support a promising young leader in getting the resources to do a task, or when they
fail at a task for unforeseen reasons (Kambil, 2010).

b) “Leaders developing leaders”

One of the related strategy that can be use by organization is to leverage the use of
senior leaders to develop future leaders is “leaders developing leaders”. This
involves getting senior managers directly involved in teaching and facilitating
leadership development (Cacioppe, 1998b). Underscoring the importance of senior
leader‟s involvement and participation, The Human Capital Institute (HCI), together
with Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH), released a research report on this topic in 2010.
The research compared global top companies with more than 530 other
organizations around the globe. The single characteristic that distinguished these
companies from the others is that they made leadership a critical part of their
organizational fabric. They also found that leadership development was embedded
into the culture of top companies.

According to the report, this programs are built on the theory that senior leaders are
uniquely positioned to espouse and teach the leadership values and skills of
organizations. In this inexpensive, scalability, and efficient program, calibre senior
leaders will become teachers, coaches, and or mentors for the organization‟s future
leaders. In fact, this program must be a priority in any organization if they serious to
develop their leadership pipeline.

c) Inculcating the culture of leadership development in institutions of higher education

Leaders should embed leadership development in the organization culture, structure
and system. Top management should supports and reinforces shared accountability,
feedback mechanism and the overall importance of leadership development. This
effort must be visible so that it can send a clear message to all employees that
leadership development should be their priority. Full support from senior leaders
includes involvement in curriculum development, targeted individuals selection and
involvement with learning activities (Leskiew and Singh, 2007).

In addition, organization should make leadership development a top strategic priority

and create a supportive organizational culture. Senior leaders must be involved in
teaching courses and workshops, facilitating action learning projects, and engaging
direct reports in regular discussions of high potential employees. Without strong
support from the senior leaders, leadership development and succession planning
will be viewed as non-essential activities (Groves, 2007). When it becomes visible, it
will be much easier to instil a favourable culture of learning and a genuine
commitment to development (Brooks, Ferrandou and Anderson, 2007).

6
Instilling the culture of developing people has to start from the top. Setting
expectations through the performance management process and reinforcing them
through rewards and recognition are critical for embedding these priorities in the
culture, and managers need to be held accountable for supporting the development
of their staff (Brown, 2010).

Challenges and recommendations

Despite recognising the importance of developing future leaders, many managers

lack the knowledge, capability, and organizational support they need to participate
and involve in development. Organization also lack the skills to engage senior
leaders in the process (Brooks, Ferrandou and Anderson, 2007). Normally,
organization end up to hire management development specialists, consultants,
academic and other professional.

Based on the Report of Leadership Development in European Organisation Study (

and Hewes et al. (2012), there are a few steps to secure senior leader‟s
involvement. First, organization must create compelling vision and effectively
communicated to senior management. This vision must be in line with organization
goals, inspiring and interesting. Organization must also obtain senior leader‟s
commitment at the very start. It begins at the project approval process, talking with
leaders to gain their support for the program and their commitment to be engaged
with it. In this regard, organization also can form an advisory board. This board
consist of senior leaders that will contribute ideas for upcoming sessions, provide
feedback on past programmes and give approval for new programs.

In addition, organization must develop a network of „„believers‟‟ in senior leaders

through:
a) Bringing data to support the argument for why they should be involved.
b) Providing benchmarks that describe how other companies have used senior
leaders in these roles with good results.
c) Being persuasive and persistent by emphasizing the value to both the individual
leader and to the organization.

In short, the way to get senior leaders involved in leadership development is to make
them central to the process and to communicate the organizational value and the
personal rewards that will result from their engagement (Harris and Barnes, 2006).

Another challenge is to ensure the success of senior leader‟s efforts. In this regard,
organization should incorporate the following four important components: use a
selection process to identify which leaders will develop new leaders, prepare and
develop your seasoned leaders to effectively teach, coach, and develop future
leaders, hold leaders accountable for developing others through assessment, and
recognize those leaders who do it well (The Human Capital Institute, 2010). In this
sense, senior leaders have succession planning objectives as part of their
performance objectives, which drive rewards.

7
HRD professionals role in organization must also change. They must identify senior
leaders to teach and help them to create a point of view as well as design the right
approaches for development. When senior leaders do become involved in potential
leaders development, learning professionals may be called upon to help them
prepare for roles as mentors and coaches. A close alliance between leaders and the
learning function can help to ensure that candidate development activities actually
address the needs identified for each candidate and are relevant to specific
challenges the organization faces, while also providing oversight to maintain
consistency and quality in the development process (Morrison, 2011).

Conclusion
Clearly, having the leader‟s involvement and participation in every stage and form
of leadership development initiatives is very crucial. They are the driver of
development efforts and they add unique value to the process. It is a core skill
required of senior leaders and should be emphasised in organizational leadership
development initiatives to facilitate leadership pipeline. This paper noted the
importance of senior leaders involvement and participation. They need to show their
interest and commitment in order to get commitment from others. They must make
use their valuable experience in order to fill leadership pipeline. They play a central
role in making development visible and exhibit commitment to the development
agenda. In short, senior leaders‟ involvement and participation is very critical to
develop a strong pipeline in any organization.

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