The Leadership Pipeline

📖 Why You Should Read It

If you've ever wondered why a brilliant individual contributor fails as a manager, or why a great manager struggles when promoted to lead other managers, this book has the answer. The Leadership Pipeline breaks down six critical transitions leaders must make as they progress through an organization, and more importantly, it explains why most people get stuck. A leader of others and a leader of leaders have completely different jobs, but most people promoted to lead leaders keep doing the leader-of-others work. For design leaders managing teams or managing managers, this framework gives you language to diagnose why someone's struggling and what they need to develop. It's not about skills alone; it's about fundamentally changing what you value as success.

👉🏻 Key Takeaways

• Leadership passages require changes in three dimensions: skills, time application, and work values (what you find meaningful).
• Leaders fail transitions when they continue doing work from their previous level instead of embracing new responsibilities.
• The first passage (managing self to managing others) is the hardest for most people because you must stop doing the work and get it done through others.
• Leader of leaders must develop other managers, not manage their teams directly, and must be willing to move people back to individual contributor roles if they can't make the transition.
• Work values are harder to change than skills, but they're the real reason most transitions fail.
• "Value resistance" happens when someone intellectually knows what they should do but emotionally can't let go of what made them successful before.
• Each level up requires letting go of what you were good at and finding new sources of satisfaction.
• Functional managers must think strategically about competitive advantage, not just manage day-to-day operations.

💬 Favorite Quotes

"Not everyone is cut out for leadership."

"The best information on leaders comes from the followers."

"One of the tough responsibilities of managers of managers is to return people to individual-contributor roles if first-line managers don't shift their behaviors and values."

"The six turns in the pipeline are major events in the life of a leader. They represent significant passages that can't be mastered in a day or by taking a course."