The Leadership Pipeline

One aspect of growing a company that I didn’t consider 10 years ago is building a leadership pipeline. The idea behind a leadership pipeline is that a startup can only grow as fast as its people grow and managers need to grow with the business. Think about the following:

• Co-founders working together
• Managing direct reports
• Managing managers of direct reports
• Managing executives who are managing managers of direct reports
• Managing executives who are managing managers of managers of direct reports

So, the goal is to promote from within whenever possible, so some front-line employees need to be groomed into managers, and then managers need to be groomed to be managers of managers or executives, and so on. My recommendation is to consider building a leadership pipeline as your startup grows.

What else? What other considerations do you have about a leadership pipeline?