Last month we profiled frontline leaders as the foundation of any strong leadership pipeline. Once your organization has compiled the success profile for its frontline (or people) leaders you must begin preparing them for the next two levels: operational (or mid-level) and strategic (or executive-level) leaders. These two transitions bring with them entirely new challenges: increased spans of control; shifting from the tactical to more operational and strategic issues; building a high-performance culture; and fostering innovation.
According to DDI’s 2008/2009 Global Leadership Forecast, 39% of respondents rated making the shift from a frontline leader to an operational leader, or leader of leaders, difficult to very difficult. A whopping 52% rated making the transition to strategic leader at that same difficultly level. Astonishingly, over half of the organizations surveyed had no formal development plan for their leaders making this transition.
With the increase in responsibility, it’s crucial to ensure these leaders are receiving the guidance and development they need to take on their new role. DDI's new white papers provide additional guidance around those steps: identifying potential and assessing readiness; assessing performance; and developing your operational and strategic leaders. But first, you need to know what these leaders look like. In the following article we'll show the Success ProfilesSM for operational and strategic leaders. Read the article.
Building a Strong Leadership PipelineSM: Making the Shift to Operational and Strategic Leader
