Their Leadership Plans
In my Substack posts, I mostly write about what it means for individuals to navigate What’s Next: how to move through transitions with intention, how to build resilience that holds up under real pressure, and how to make thoughtful decisions during periods of uncertainty and change.
Much of my work over the past twenty years, however, has focused on how organizations build their own What’s Next, particularly in developing the leadership capability they will need for future success.
What I have seen most often is that relatively few companies think about leadership development strategically or consistently. As a result, they frequently fail to develop the internal leaders needed to take the organization to its next stage. Eventually, they look outside for leadership talent, a process that is expensive, disruptive, and often less successful than expected.
One McKinsey study found that nearly 90% of executives believed their leadership development efforts failed to achieve the desired results. That means organizations are spending enormous amounts of time and money on leadership development while quietly recognizing that much of it fails to produce meaningful change.
My colleague and co-author, Michael Couch, and I have spent years studying this issue, work that became the foundation of our book, Strategy-Driven Leadership. Over the past year, we completed a Strategy-Driven Leadership project with a large family business, preparing several second-generation family members and emerging leaders for greater responsibilities. What became immediately clear was that the leadership skills that built and sustained the business through its first 30 years are not the same as those needed for the next 30 years.
That realization sits at the center of our work.
Most leadership development remains surprisingly generic. Organizations send people to programs on communication, delegation, executive presence, or decision-making with little connection to the strategic realities facing the business itself. But leadership never exists in the abstract.
A rapidly growing company may need leaders who can navigate ambiguity, collaborate across boundaries, and think more strategically. A company under pressure may instead need operational discipline, accountability, and sharper execution. A family business preparing for generational transition may need leaders who can balance strategy, relationships, influence, and organizational trust.
Different business conditions require different leadership capabilities.
Yet many organizations still approach development as though every company and every leader requires the same formula. Leadership development becomes event-based, detached from the work itself, and too often reduced to a perfunctory discussion during annual or semi-annual reviews.
What we have found instead is that meaningful development happens when it becomes integrated into the work itself. Real growth occurs through challenging assignments, deliberate practice, coaching, feedback, reflection, and repeated application over time. Leadership capability is built while navigating real business problems in real time, not two months later during a performance review discussion.
One participant who works closely with the CEO was focused on becoming a more concise and effective communicator. During the project, he told us, “If I can’t distill complexity into a sentence, I’m not advising, I’m just reporting.” It was an important insight because it reflected a deeper shift in how he viewed his role, moving from simply executing work to helping shape thinking and decisions. That kind of growth rarely happens from attending another seminar or discussing development on a quarterly basis. It happens when people are intentionally challenged to think, communicate, and lead differently in the middle of the actual work taking place every day.
Organizations spend enormous resources trying to prepare future leaders. The better question may be whether they are developing the right capabilities for the future they are heading toward.
Too often, leadership development is designed around preserving what helped build the organization rather than preparing people for what comes next. But markets change, business models evolve, family dynamics shift, and leadership responsibilities become more complex over time. The skills that created success in one chapter are never the same skills required for the next one.
The real challenge of leadership development, then, is not teaching people to run the organization they inherit. It is preparing them to lead the one that they will create.
