02/29/2024

Crafting a Better Plan for Emerging Leaders

Identify leadership candidates for staff and volunteers early

The post-pandemic world is a complex one, but if there's a common theme that has emerged in organizations in the past few years, it's contained in one question: How do you keep good people? In the midst of quiet quitting, pressure on middle management, and anxiety over toxic boards, the conversation around finding the right people for roles, and keeping them there, has intensified.

Resolving that challenge means developing a pipeline of talent, both for key staff roles and positions on your committees and board. In a Forbes story last week, DocuSign Chief People Officer Jennifer Christie explained how the company does that. First and foremost, it provides training to demonstrate what that leadership and management actually looks like. “We want people to go into people leadership with their eyes wide open about what it entails,” she explained.

A Harvard Business Review piece on research by Gartner on management pipeline trainingreinforced the need for clarity about realities of the job. Organizations "need to help the individuals discover whether management is really right for them," according to the article. "The focus … should be less on the mechanics of the job, such as the performance review process, and more on the tough issues that increasingly arise, about topics such as pay equity, support for social justice, remote work and layoffs."

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.