Leadership Pipeline Model for Succession Planning Training Course

Course overview

Succession plans often identify high-potential employees without showing whether they are ready for the specific leadership work ahead. Managers may rely on informal nominations, annual talent reviews, or replacement lists that do not distinguish between leading self, leading others, leading managers, functional leadership, and enterprise leadership. This creates avoidable appointment risk: capable technical specialists are promoted without the values, time application, or people-management skills required at the next leadership passage.

This five-day Leadership Pipeline Model for Succession Planning course teaches participants to use the Leadership Pipeline framework to define critical leadership passages, diagnose transition gaps, and build evidence-based successor pools. Participants learn to translate business strategy into role-critical requirements; create leadership success profiles; assess readiness using performance, potential, aspiration, and experience data; facilitate calibrated talent reviews; and design development actions for named successors. The course also covers nine-box grids, successor slates, risk-of-loss analysis, development assignments, mentoring, and succession governance.

Teaching combines instructor-led explanation with practical workshops built around a realistic organisational case. Participants work with leadership-pipeline templates, talent data, role profiles, and succession scenarios to make defensible decisions. By the end of the course, each participant produces a Leadership Pipeline Succession Blueprint containing a critical-role map, leadership-passage criteria, a sample successor assessment, development actions, governance routines, and a 90-day implementation plan. Completion earns a certificate and gives both the participant and their sponsor a structured method for moving succession planning from names on a chart to managed leadership readiness.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Map critical roles to the six Leadership Pipeline passages and identify transition-specific leadership requirements
• Create a leadership success profile that defines business results, skills, values, time application, and experience criteria
• Segment roles by business criticality, vacancy risk, and talent-market availability using a succession risk matrix
• Assess successor readiness using performance, potential, aspiration, experience, and mobility evidence
• Facilitate a calibrated nine-box talent review and document evidence-based placement decisions
• Build a successor slate that distinguishes ready now, ready in one to two years, and ready in three to five years candidates
• Design targeted development plans using stretch assignments, coaching, mentoring, and transition milestones
• Produce a Leadership Pipeline Succession Blueprint with governance measures, dashboards, and a 90-day rollout plan

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• HR Directors — who need a consistent enterprise method for identifying and developing leadership successors
• Talent Management Managers — who design talent reviews, succession processes, and high-potential programmes
• Learning and Development Managers — who must connect leadership development investments to successor readiness
• HR Business Partners — who advise business leaders on critical roles, talent risks, and promotion decisions
• Department Heads — who need credible successor pools for operationally critical leadership positions
• Senior Managers — who participate in talent calibration and sponsor development for future leaders

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have basic familiarity with their organisation’s structure, leadership roles, performance-management cycle, and existing talent-review or succession practices. Experience as a line manager, HR practitioner, HR business partner, or L&D professional is helpful because exercises require discussion of real role requirements and development decisions. Participants should be comfortable reading simple workforce data in spreadsheets and discussing performance and potential evidence. No prior certification in the Leadership Pipeline model, psychometric assessment, workforce planning, Power BI, or HR analytics is required. Complete beginners can attend and should expect guided explanations of succession terminology, nine-box grids, readiness categories, and talent calibration.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led modules to introduce each Leadership Pipeline passage, followed by workshops in which participants analyse a case organisation’s roles, talent records, and business risks. Teams build success profiles, classify readiness, challenge nine-box placements, and design development assignments for realistic successor scenarios. Facilitated debriefs focus on the evidence needed to defend decisions with line leaders. Participants progressively assemble sections of their own Leadership Pipeline Succession Blueprint, then receive peer and instructor feedback while converting it into a practical 90-day application plan.

Course outline

Day 1: Leadership Pipeline architecture and succession risk

• The Leadership Pipeline model and its six leadership passages
• Leading self to leading others transition requirements
• Leading others to leading managers transition requirements
• Functional and enterprise leadership passage distinctions
• Skills, time application, and work values at each passage
• Critical-role identification and role segmentation criteria
• Succession risk matrix for vacancy impact and bench strength

Workshop: Participants map a case organisation’s critical roles to Leadership Pipeline passages and produce a prioritised succession-risk matrix.

Day 2: Success profiles and successor evidence

• Leadership success profile structure and evidence fields
• Business outcomes and accountabilities for critical roles
• Technical, leadership, and enterprise capability requirements
• Values and time-application indicators by leadership passage
• Performance, potential, aspiration, and mobility data sources
• Experience requirements and exposure-gap analysis
• Bias controls in successor nomination and evidence gathering

Workshop: Participants create a complete success profile and evidence checklist for one priority leadership role.

Day 3: Talent assessment and calibrated succession decisions

• Definitions of performance, potential, readiness, and promotability
• Nine-box grid design and appropriate uses
• Readiness categories and time-to-ready definitions
• Structured talent-review meeting agenda and decision rules
• Calibration techniques for cross-functional comparison
• Documenting dissent, assumptions, and evidence gaps
• Successor slate design and single-point-of-failure analysis

Workshop: Participants run a simulated talent-calibration meeting and produce a documented successor slate with readiness ratings.

Day 4: Development through leadership transitions

• Development needs analysis against success-profile criteria
• Stretch assignment design for leadership-passage growth
• Action learning projects and cross-functional exposure
• Coaching and mentoring roles in successor development
• Transition plans for newly appointed leaders
• Development milestones and readiness review checkpoints
• Managing high-potential expectations and retention risk

Workshop: Participants design a 12-month development plan for a successor, including assignments, support, milestones, and accountable sponsors.

Day 5: Governance, measurement, and implementation

• Succession governance roles for executives, HR, and line leaders
• Annual succession cycle and talent-review cadence
• Bench-strength, coverage, and readiness metrics
• Diversity and equity checks in successor pools
• Confidentiality, data quality, and decision-record controls
• Leadership Pipeline dashboard design in Excel and Power BI
• Ninety-day implementation planning and stakeholder communication

Workshop: Participants assemble and present their Leadership Pipeline Succession Blueprint, including measures, governance routines, and a 90-day rollout plan.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Teams, ISO 30414

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions