The Leadership Pipeline: Fad, Fashion, or Empirical Fact?
Kaiser, R.B. (2011, February). The Leadership Pipeline: Fad, Fashion, or Empirical Fact? Session presented at the APA Division 13 (Society for Consulting Psychology) midwinter conference, Las Vegas, NV.
Perhaps the single-biggest idea to affect leadership development and talent management over the last decade has been “the leadership pipeline” concept. This model assumes that what it takes for managers to succeed is different for jobs at the bottom, middle, and top. Thanks to books like The Leadership Pipeline and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There the idea has become wildly popular in practice. It is the conceptual basis for how many admired organizations implement selection and development systems as well as how many consulting psychologists frame the developmental challenge for newly promoted executives.
However, a closer look at the research basis behind this model leaves much to be desired. Yes, there is a large descriptive literature describing how the requirements of managerial jobs are different at the bottom, middle, and top. However, this research is mostly job analytic in nature. Surprisingly, there is not a single predictive study in the published literature that demonstrates different relations between the managerial behaviors, skills, and competencies related to effectiveness at different organizational levels.
Since “Putting Science into Practice” is part of our value proposition as consulting psychologists, this session will feature two independent tests of the Leadership Pipeline Hypothesis: are the behaviors that predict managerial effectiveness different across organizational levels? Finally, Arthur Freedman will comment on the two studies and their practical implications. Arthur is ideally suited to the role: although Ram Charan and Marshall Goldsmith are widely associated with the Pipeline concept because of their popular books, Arthur wrote the definitive article on the psychological implications of changing job requirements as you ascend the hierarchy. His Pathways and Crossroads model was described in the 1996 Consulting Psychology Journal article of the year.
- Robert B. Kaiser & Darren V. Overfield, Kaplan DeVries Inc., Do the Behaviors Related to Effectiveness Really Change with Organizational Level?
- Kenneth P. De Meuse & Guangrong Dai, Korn/Ferry International, Leadership Skill Requirements across Organizational Levels: A Closer Examination
- Arthur Freedman, World Institute for Action Learning, Meeting the Challenges of Moving through the Leadership Pipeline
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