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Leading Greats #157
The Pipeline Isn't Broken. Your Thinking About It Is:
Ronnie Kinsey, MBA
March 24, 2026
Welcome to Leading Greats, my Tuesday weekly newsletter.
Here I offer actionable leadership, business, and personal development insights and tools from my decades of experience as a learner, leader, and high-performance coach.
It’s been a priceless accumulation. I am pleased to share this with you.
Every quarter, another report lands with the same conclusion.
Leadership pipelines are in crisis.
Bench strength is weak. The next generation isn't ready.
Organizations respond the same way every time.
More programs. More assessments.
More succession templates collecting dust in HR drives.
The pipeline stays broken.
Here is what no one wants to say out loud:
The pipeline was never the problem.
THE REAL DIAGNOSIS
When 77% of CHROs admit they lack confidence in their bench strength,
that is not a talent shortage.
That is a reflection of what the organization built, rewarded, and ignored.
Pipelines do not fail suddenly.
They fail slowly, invisibly, through a thousand small decisions
that prioritized output over growth and compliance over capability.
You did not wake up short of leaders.
You built a system that was never designed to produce them.
THE CONTRARIAN TRUTH
Most organizations are trying to fix a thinking problem
with a process solution.
The assumption at the center of it all:
Leadership readiness is something you identify.
It is not. It is something you create.
The organization that keeps looking for the right people
in the wrong conditions
will keep finding the same result.
5 ACTIONS THAT CHANGE THE OUTCOME
1. Audit capacity before adding development.
A leader tapped for acceleration while running at 90% capacity will not develop.
They will manage. There is a difference.
Know what they are already carrying before adding more.
2. Surface what people actually believe about themselves.
Self-limiting beliefs kill more pipelines than any skills gap ever will.
Stop developing visible competencies
while the internal narrative running underneath them goes unexamined.
3. Make readiness situationally specific.
Ready for what, exactly? Under which conditions? With what support?
Readiness without context is assumption.
Build around the specific role, not a generic leadership profile.
4. Ask about desire directly.
Does this person actually want what you are grooming them for?
Not in theory. Not because it looks like the right career move.
A high-performing leader without genuine desire for the role
will exit within eighteen months of taking it.
You will call it a pipeline failure.
It was a conversation you never had.
5. Develop in the work, not beside it.
Classroom programs and off-site cohorts have their place.
Real development happens in live decisions, real stakes,
and honest feedback delivered close to the moment.
Build development into the daily experience of leading, not around it.
SOMETHING TO CARRY
The leaders you are looking for
are likely already inside your organization.
You have not been unable to find them.
You have been asking the wrong questions.
Change the questions. The pipeline fills itself.
Thanks for reading!
And for putting Leading Greats at the top of your week!!
Update: It is happening
Several weeks ago I put out a feeler for people who take leadership, productivity, and flow seriously. Not as concepts, as operating conditions.
Our initial group met.
This community is for people who already lead, already produce, and already know exactly where misalignment drains their time, energy, and decision quality.
I will share more on this soon.
Thank You for your interest!
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Until next time - Keep it Great,
-Ronnie
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