Introduction to Resources

LPI is a research-based organization. We continuously conduct action research with clients, industry research and longitudinal studies involving the thousands of students on our programs and through our alumni set-up.

We produce cutting-edge knowledge that is easily applicable by most organizations. For example, the Leadership Pipeline book is an evergreen bestseller with more than 300,000 copies sold and is considered one of the most influential leadership models over the past two decades.

We combine our own research with leading external academic and applied research in the areas of leadership development, adult learning, high-impact learning, impact measurement and digitized learning.

We are broadly acknowledged for our ability to translate comprehensive research results into hands-on practical solutions that can be applied by leaders, specialists and project leaders meeting today’s and tomorrow’s business challenges. Our leadership and specialist transition programs are the result of this process and demonstrate how the more traditional case-based learning can be replaced by hands-on action learning to an extent where training is work and work is training.

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The Leadership Pipeline

In 2024, an updated and revised version of the bestseller, The Leadership Pipeline, was published. The Leadership Pipeline book has sold more than 300,000 copies and the Leadership Pipeline model is considered one of the most influential leadership models in the last two decades.

The overwhelmingly positive response to the first edition of The Leadership Pipeline led to the second edition published in 2011. Over the past twenty years, we have experienced a continued and increasing interest in applying the Leadership Pipeline model. Our discussions with readers and our work as consultants have provided us with invaluable feedback about the Pipeline model—feedback that has helped make this model even more effective in practice than when we first wrote about it. We want to pass on the lessons we’ve learned so that companies can maximize the Pipeline’s value.

The Leadership Pipeline

Many of the best and most successful corporations in the world have adopted the Leadership Pipeline model as the core framework for their efforts on the human side of their businesses. CEOs and other senior executives at these leading companies tell us they have adopted The Leadership Pipeline because they believe it gives them the ability to stay ahead of their competition. Built around the common leadership “passages”, it helps organizations select, develop, and assess leaders based on specific responsibilities and the required skills, time application and work values at each leadership level.

Our approach to the third edition of the book has been to make it even easier for organizations to implement the model and harvest the same benefits as those organizations already using it. The Leadership Pipeline model itself is timeless, but the business environment is ever-changing. Organizational structures and business models develop and the macro trends in the surrounding world pull organizations in new directions. In this book, we capture what has changed over the past years and we look ahead to outline how best to use the model in the future.

Strong leaders at all levels within an organization are a requisite for business success. Yet the leadership pipeline – the internal architecture for growing leaders – is often broken or nonexistent. This updated edition of the bestseller, The Leadership Pipeline, has been revised to help address the challenges of today′s business environment. Anchored in experience, it offers a tested model for planning leadership succession and development that has proven to get results. The authors draw on their work at more than one hundred international companies to report on what has been learned in the ten years since the first edition of The Leadership Pipeline was published. They show how a company can develop leadership in each layer of its organization by defining the different skills required as leaders move from one level to the next. They explain how time should be applied differently, how work values required for success must change, and clearly illustrate what inappropriate leadership looks like at each step. In addition, the authors answer commonly asked questions and add new insights from their in-the-field research. The Leadership Pipeline shows how today′s companies can keep their leadership "pipeline" filled and flowing to ensure a steady supply of skilled leaders throughout the organization.

Quotes From Amazon

Great Book

“This is a most fantastic book explaining the roles and responsibilities which leaders should adopt in order to build an organization which fosters strong leaders. Very insightful with lots of practical information”

Every engineer should read

“This book proposes a very solid philosophy. Companies are encouraged invest time and resources in growing leaders within their mists. Some hiring managers go through high turnover of people until they find someone they 'like'. This is a very expensive approach which also increase to low morale of the group”

I recommend this book

“I highly recommend this book for the simple, but insightful model describing the transition people make as they move up the corporate ladder. It is also well written and easy to read”

Great concept

“Every organization at some point seems to struggle with having leaders in the right place, knowing what is expected of them and holding them accountable for meeting these expectations.

Leadership Pipeline reminds readers of just that”

The Specialist Pipeline

A long-standing focus on leadership development has spanned decades. Substantial amounts of money and effort have been invested in organizations developing managers and leaders, as having competent leaders in an organization is crucial for the survival. But whereas we have a long tradition of structured managerial training for leaders at various organizational levels, things are quite different when it comes to specialists. And while career paths for leaders are clearly visible in most organizations, the lack of a useful architecture for specialists is noticeable.

Many organizations articulate how important specialists are to the organizations. Yet very few organizations have supporting architecture and structured development programs for specialists—at least not beyond a title structure for specialists and purely technical training.

We have a long tradition of developing our leaders to work more effec- tively as leaders, but we do not have the same tradition of developing specialists to work more effectively as specialists.

The Performance Pipeline

A long-standing focus on leadership development has spanned decades. Substantial amounts of money and effort have been invested in organizations developing managers and leaders, as having competent leaders in an organization is crucial for the survival. But whereas we have a long tradition of structured managerial training for leaders at various organizational levels, things are quite different when it comes to specialists. And while career paths for leaders are clearly visible in most organizations, the lack of a useful architecture for specialists is noticeable.

Many organizations articulate how important specialists are to the organizations. Yet very few organizations have supporting architecture and structured development programs for specialists—at least not beyond a title structure for specialists and purely technical training.

We have a long tradition of developing our leaders to work more effec- tively as leaders, but we do not have the same tradition of developing specialists to work more effectively as specialists.

Assessing where your own organization is placed in this area is quite simple. You pick twenty specialists within your organization at different organizational levels; then you ask them if they feel that specialists are getting the same attention as leaders and whether being a spe- cialist offers career opportunities similar to those when pursuing managerial careers.

Companies need an enduring specialist architecture that enables the entire organization to work with and talk about people matters in a consistent way. The architecture needs to set common standards for both performance and potential, differentiated by a layer of management. It should also establish language and processes to address issues, identify problems, and exploit opportunities effectively as well as data for making decisions about everything from job transition to performance.

The lack of focus on specialists and the absence of a specialist architecture present real business challenges. In the following sections, we have addressed some of the most common challenges.

The Performance Pipeline

Getting the Right Performance at Every Level of Leadership. From Stephen Drotter, co-author of the bestseller, The Leadership Pipeline, comes the next-step resource designed to help leaders at every level succeed in an uncertain business environment. The Performance Pipeline is a groundbreaking book that is based on Stephen Drotter's forty years of in-depth work with more than 100 companies worldwide. The book defines how work flows from top to bottom and reveals what results each layer must produce and what each layer must pass down to make the layers below successful.

The Performance Pipeline

From Stephen Drotter, co-author of the bestseller, The Leadership Pipeline, comes the next-step resource designed to help leaders at every level succeed in an uncertain business environment. The Performance Pipeline is a groundbreaking book that is based on Stephen Drotter's forty years of in-depth work with more than 100 companies worldwide. The book defines how work flows from top to bottom and reveals what results each layer must produce and what each layer must pass down to make the layers below successful.

What constitutes effective leadership performance? What results should good leadership produce? Today, the expectations of leadership are often misguided. In today’s economic environment, it's not enough to simply build a company full of people with leadership skills. These leadership skills need to be applied to the right results. These results must be differentiated by a layer with specific measures established in writing. You can give your leaders an advantage over the competition by providing clarity and focus at every level.

From the inside flap
Filled with illustrative examples and personal experiences, the book shows how Performance Pipelines work in real-world organizations. The Performance Pipeline uses a framework that is as easy to apply as it is to understand and addresses three critical business needs:
• How to improve business performance by defining the unique purpose of each layer and providing clarity and focus for the results to be achieved
• How to make all leaders successful by having leaders at every layer pass down things to the layers below they need to be successful
• How to help leaders make the transition to a new layer and how to remove performance roadblocks so leaders deliver the results required at their new layer

Drotter's Performance Pipeline method was created to be flexible and can be adopted by companies of all sizes and in any industry. Using this book as a touchstone, professionals will learn how to define and install their own Performance Pipeline to obtain the benefits of role clarity and to sharpen the focus of all their leaders at all levels. Leaders and professionals will learn how to measure the work of leaders at every level.

Interview With Stephen Drotter on the Links Between the Pipeline Books

Quotes From Amazon

The right results from the right people in the right management layer... Simple and efficient!

“This book gives us a deep understanding of how companies loose time, efficiency and money because the absence of a clear view of what results are expected from each management layer. It is worthy reading to see how to make expectations and roles simple and understandable to everybody...”

For the Leader in All of Us

“Drotter talks about not only having good leadership skills but applying them properly for optimum performance.

Performance Pipeline draws on decades of experience and research so has many interesting stories. The best learning is often gained through stories (and they keep it interesting).”

The Performance Pipeline

“Drotter lives up to his reputation by building on The Leadership Pipeline and focussing on improving skill performance. A first class read”