Overcoming the Leadership Gap (With Fewer Leaders)

We must find a way to bridge the lead­er­ship gap.

Leadership is crit­ic­al to any suc­cess­ful organ­isa­tion, and devel­op­ing influ­en­tial lead­ers is essen­tial for long-term success.

But there’s a simple solution:

By appoint­ing few­er lead­ers and allow­ing good lead­ers to lead big­ger groups, organ­isa­tions can stream­line decision-mak­ing pro­cesses, reduce bur­eau­cracy, and pro­mote the growth and devel­op­ment of their most effect­ive employees.

Here we go:

Not Enough Leaders To Go Around

Leadership is a cru­cial com­pon­ent of any suc­cess­ful organ­isa­tion. It drives innov­a­tion, fosters col­lab­or­a­tion, and inspires employ­ees to achieve their best res­ults. However, find­ing and train­ing influ­en­tial lead­ers can be a sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenge for many organisations.

A Gallup study examin­ing cor­por­ate lead­er­ship and man­age­ment found that only 10% of employ­ees are nat­ur­al lead­ers. Furthermore, the study found that an addi­tion­al 20% of employ­ees could become good lead­ers with the prop­er guid­ance and train­ing. ¹Gallup: Only One in Ten Possess the Talent To Manage (2015).

The good news is that these find­ings sug­gest that, while lead­er­ship abil­it­ies are not innate, they can be developed with the prop­er support.

The bad news? Roughly 70% of the work­force shouldn’t be con­sidered lead­er­ship mater­i­al. No won­der 8 out of 10 busi­nesses report that lead­er­ship is lack­ing. ²Zippia: 36 Powerful Leadership Statistics: Things All Aspiring Leaders Should Know (2023).

Ouch.

The Leadership Gap in Organisations

This nat­ur­al short­age of cap­able lead­ers hasn’t stopped the cor­por­ate world from appoint­ing lead­ers left and right. As a con­sult­ant, I more often than not encounter organ­isa­tions where one per­son does the work that four man­agers tell them to do.

Please note that I’m not talk­ing about CEOs:s here. I’m talk­ing about any­one to who an organ­isa­tion has gran­ted author­ity over oth­ers. I’m talk­ing, of course, about the seem­ingly ever-expand­ing sphere of middle managers.

One of the crit­ic­al issues con­trib­ut­ing to the lead­er­ship gap is the tend­ency for cor­por­a­tions to appoint too many middle managers.

No won­der, then, that so many organ­isa­tions struggle to find and train enough lead­ers to ful­fil their needs. Too many non-per­form­ing man­agers in too many lay­ers can lead to inef­fi­cien­cies, unne­ces­sary bur­eau­cracy, and a lack of clar­ity regard­ing decision-mak­ing and accountability.

Training Can’t Fix the Leadership Gap

How do we solve the prob­lem of the lead­er­ship gap?

The tra­di­tion­al answer to lead­er­ship prob­lems at the C‑level is to hire and fire bet­ter. This obvi­ously can’t work at lower levels of the hier­arch­ies. With prop­er due dili­gence, there wouldn’t be much of the organ­isa­tion left.

At this point, the stra­tegic answer seems to be train­ing. Even if every­one isn’t born with lead­er­ship qual­it­ies, such skills can be trained, right? Even the 70% who lack the basic require­ments could be made into effi­cient lead­ers with prop­er devel­op­ment — the­or­et­ic­ally. ³Forbes: Leadership Development Is A $366 Billion Industry: Here’s Why Most Programs Don’t Work (2019).

Having con­sul­ted numer­ous organ­isa­tions of vary­ing shapes and sizes, I sug­gest the num­bers for media train­ing poten­tial cor­res­ponds with the num­bers for poten­tial lead­er­ship; about 10% have nat­ur­al tal­ents for becom­ing a great spokes­per­son or a thought lead­er for the organ­isa­tion. They have the poten­tial to thrive in a com­plex rela­tion­ship with the media. Another 20% can get there with guid­ance and training.

Theoretically, any­one can become a suc­cess­ful cor­por­ate spokes­per­son with enough media train­ing. But then the invest­ment won’t match the yield.

Alas — train­ing is an answer. But it isn’t the answer.

The Bottleneck of Identifying Leaders

There’s anoth­er sig­ni­fic­ant factor to con­sider when appoint­ing leaders:

How can we identi­fy the right pro­fes­sion­als to assign lead­er­ship roles? 

Many C‑level exec­ut­ives will have dis­tin­guished them­selves through­out their careers. But the fur­ther down the hier­archy we travel, the num­ber of man­agers increases expo­nen­tially — and they become stat­ist­ic­ally less and less dis­tin­guish­able as lead­er­ship mater­i­al. ⁴Harvard Business Review: Why Good Managers Are So Rare (2014).

Considering the chal­lenge of cor­rectly identi­fy­ing and devel­op­ing poten­tial lead­ers, most organ­isa­tions should be pleased if they can identi­fy 30% of their cowork­ers with lead­er­ship potential.

Another way of describ­ing the situation:

With each added lay­er of bur­eau­cracy, the stat­ist­ic­al chance of identi­fy­ing and devel­op­ing strong lead­ers gets expo­nen­tially worse with each layer.

Solution: Appoint Fewer Middle Managers

The solu­tion to this prob­lem is to appoint few­er lead­ers (espe­cially middle man­agers!) and allow strong lead­ers to lead big­ger groups. 

This approach also allows strong lead­ers to take on great­er respons­ib­il­it­ies, lead­ing lar­ger groups and pro­mot­ing their devel­op­ment and growth.

Of course, ensur­ing that the right people are appoin­ted to lead­er­ship roles is essen­tial. This means invest­ing in train­ing and devel­op­ment pro­grams to help employ­ees devel­op their skills to become influ­en­tial leaders. 

It also means cre­at­ing a con­tinu­ous learn­ing and devel­op­ment cul­ture where employ­ees can take on new chal­lenges and expand their skills.

PR Resource: Checklist for Leadership Clarity

The Checklist for Communicative Leadership

Being a great lead­er can be daunt­ing. However, with effort (and atten­tion to detail), all lead­ers can prac­tice express­ive and pre­cise communication.

How can you ensure your lead­er­ship is express­ive and pre­cise in prac­tic­al situations? 

As a rule of thumb:

Make sure to pass these com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­er­ship checks:

“Expressive and pre­cise com­mu­nic­a­tion styles have a stronger link to lead­er out­comes than per­son­al­ity traits extra­ver­sion and con­scien­tious­ness.”
Source: Human Performance ⁵Bakker-Pieper, A., & Vries, R. (2013). The Incremental Validity of Communication Styles Over Personality Traits for Leader Outcomes. Human Performance, 26, 1 — … Continue read­ing

Communicative Leadership (Infographic)

Learn more: The Checklist for Communicative Leadership