The Leadership pipeline

The six turns in the pipeline that we’ll discuss here are major events in the life of a leader. They represent significant passages that can’t be mastered in a day or by taking a course. Our goal here is to help you become familiar with the skills, time applications and work values demanded by each passage, as well as this particular leadership gestalt.

Once you grasp what these passages entail and the challenges involved in making each leadership transition, you’ll be in a better position to use this information to unclog your organisation’s leadership pipeline and facilitate your own growth as a leader.
    
Going through these passages helps leaders build emotional strength as they take on tasks of increasing complexity and scope. The following six chapters will provide you with ideas and tools to achieve full performance at all leadership levels in your organisation.

As you read about each passage, you’ll naturally apply it to your own organisation and may question how we’ve defined and divided each turn in the pipeline. The odds are that you’ll immediately think of at least one — and probably more — leadership transitions that apply to your own company that we have not addressed in the Leadership Pipeline model.
    
While there are other transitions, they are too small or incomplete to qualify as a major passage. For instance, many global companies have business general managers at the country level and regional executives with responsibility for several countries. The regional executives report to a person with a title such as global consumer products head.