If your bench isn't quite ready to lead, you can develop leaders from within by building a culture of accountability in your weekly meeting. Your managers may run their departments well, but they haven't had a regular place to own company-level results in front of their peers. A weekly meeting built on accountability gives them that place.
A weekly meeting routine teaches your team to answer for results, and the people ready for a leadership role rise to the occasion. They get to see what's expected of them in a leadership role, a key piece in ensuring their success at the next level.
A training program can teach the concepts behind these decisions. Judgment comes from making real calls with real numbers and seeing how they play out, and your future leaders need that practice long before the stakes rise.
Why internally promoted leaders struggle in their new role
Research from CEB (now part of Gartner) found that as many as 60% of new managers underperform or fail within their first two years, and many were never trained to lead. Many were promoted for doing their previous job well, but that role never asked them to explain results to a room, answer for a miss, or weigh how a decision affects other departments.
Promotion into a leadership position assumes someone can make decisions they've never practiced. A plant manager who ran production well now has to weigh adding a shift against the margin on a new contract. A sales lead now has to decide which customers the company should stop pursuing. If their only exposure to company direction is an annual planning session and their prior leader, they'll learn how to make those calls on the job, in front of the team that depends on them.
According to DDI's Global Leadership Forecast, only 12% of companies report confidence in the strength of their leadership bench. That's why bench strength is often thin, even at companies that invest in training for developing internal leaders.
Your weekly meeting can do far more for your bench than a training program. Every week, it teaches your culture by example: which numbers matter most, how problems get raised, and what it means to follow through on a commitment.
Your team also learns to be accountable to each other as well as to you, because every person at the table depends on someone else's number. When a teammate's goal slips, the people affected hear about it first and help solve it. Invite your bench to the weekly leadership meeting, and by the time you hand someone the title, they've been trained for months on how you expect them to lead.
Build a culture of accountability by reporting results to your peers
Owning a number changes how someone thinks about their work. A production lead who reports on-time shipments every week starts asking what drives that number. Staffing, material lead times, and the order mix sales is booking all become their business. Within a few months, they think about the company the way a leader does.
Reporting that number in front of peers sets a standard a private one-on-one can't. With every person at the table reporting on a goal and its status, nobody wants to be the one who shows up without an answer. Your production lead also hears what sales is booking and what finance sees in cash, and starts connecting decisions across departments.
Gallup's research shows fewer than half of leaders excel at holding employees accountable. Accountability gets easier when every goal has a visible owner and status. The routine handles what used to take a difficult conversation.
Horizon Systems put this routine to work when its founding leaders began transitioning out and newer leaders promoted from within stepped up. Each goal and its owner sits on a color-coded dashboard in Align, and issues get tagged to the people who need to see them before the meeting starts.
"Nobody's surprised when you get into a conversation with them, because they've seen it," said Wes Kuhl, Horizon's President.
In about two years, those leaders went from running departments to coming into quarterly planning ready to discuss core capabilities and target markets. "We're talking about where we're going and how we're gonna get there," Wes said.
Your next leaders are already sitting in your weekly meeting. Hold them to a clear standard, and they'll show you who's ready.
Spot future leaders by how they show up in meetings
Readiness for a leadership role shows up in behavior long before their title reflects it. Bringing your future leaders into an accountability-based meeting gives you a weekly read on who is growing. Watch for these four signals.
- They know their number before you ask. A future leader walks in having already checked their goal's status and can explain why it moved. If something slipped, they bring the reason and a plan to recover.
- They raise issues early. Emerging leaders flag a problem while it's still small and bring it to the people who can help solve it. Someone who waits until a goal turns red to mention trouble is still thinking like an individual contributor.
- They ask about other departments. When your operations lead asks how a sales promotion will affect next month's production schedule, they're thinking about the whole company. That curiosity is one of the clearest signs someone is ready for more scope.
- They finish what they commit to. In Align Huddles, the Who/What/When section records who agreed to what and by when. The people who close their commitments week after week, without reminders, are the ones you can trust with a bigger role.
These signals take time to show. One strong week tells you little, but a full quarter of strong weeks tells you who's ready.
Prepare employees for leadership roles with better meetings
You can start to develop leaders from within at your next meeting:
- Give every goal one owner and a number that shows whether it's on track
- Open the meeting with each owner's status before any discussion
- Hand part of the meeting, like the issues review, to your rising leaders
The free 5 Days to Better Meetings course walks you through how to run it, with one practical lesson a day for five days. Make your next meeting the first step in building a leadership bench you can promote from.
Join the free 5 Days to Better Meetings course
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you develop leaders from within your company?
Build a culture of accountability in your weekly meeting. Team members who regularly own company-level results and report on them in front of their peers build the judgment a leadership role requires, and you see who's ready before you promote anyone.
What is leadership bench strength?
Leadership bench strength is a company's supply of people ready to step into critical leadership roles. DDI's Global Leadership Forecast found only 12% of companies are confident in the strength of their bench. A strong bench protects growth when current leaders retire, move on, or take on bigger roles.
How can you tell if an employee is ready for a leadership role?
Watch how they show up in meetings over several weeks. Employees ready for leadership know their number before anyone asks, raise issues early, ask how their work affects other departments, and complete their commitments without reminders.
Why do so many new managers fail?
Research from CEB (now part of Gartner) found as many as 60% of new managers underperform or fail within their first two years. Many are promoted for success in their previous role, which rarely required decisions about the whole company. Practicing those decisions before the promotion closes that gap.
How do weekly meetings help prepare employees for leadership roles?
A weekly meeting gives emerging leaders a regular place to own results, explain what moved their number, and hear how other departments operate. Reporting in front of peers sets a standard of accountability and builds company-wide thinking that classroom training can't provide on its own.
How long does it take to develop internal leaders?
It depends on the starting point and the consistency of the routine. At Horizon Systems, newer leaders promoted from within grew from running departments to planning for the whole company in about two years, supported by weekly meetings and a quarterly review of the strategic plan.