Leadership has become among the handful of most critical elements for business success in the knowledge era. Companies increasingly compete on the strength of their intellectual capital, those intangibles but priceless assets that reside in the people and processes of the firm. But even the strongest intellectual capital base can be worthless if not guided by leaders at all levels of the organization. And having leaders at all levels requires a constantly renewing pipeline of new leaders.
The problem is, the pipeline at most companies is bone dry. Companies invest in leadership development programs and establish elaborate succession frameworks, but don't knit the two together nor take into account the fact that talented people are often recruited away. They prepare leaders in the image of the existing leaders, assuming those same skills will be meaningful into the future - when, in fact, most companies don't have a clue about what skills will be needed of their leaders in the future.

The authors present a framework for identifying future leaders, assessing their competence, planning their development, coaching them, and assessing the results of those efforts. They integrate their leadership development process (a proven one, based on their extensive experience inside top companies) with a succession planning process that enables companies to line up leaders for critical positions throughout the company.

The Leaderships Pipeline 3e combines a framework, tools, and techniques for creating an effective company-wide leadership development and succession planning process. The authors use stories from their experience to illustrate their points.