In my 7+ years of executive recruitment, the conversation with new clients almost always starts the same way: "Tony, we have a talent problem. We can't find the right people." But after working with dozens of Indonesian market leaders, I've learned that what looks like a hiring problem is almost always a leadership development problem in disguise.
Companies are so focused on finding their next star executive from the outside that they fail to build a sustainable system for creating them on the inside. This is the critical gap where a robust leadership pipeline makes all the difference, turning reactive hiring into a strategic advantage.
Key Takeaways:
In my experience, few companies truly understand the difference between a simple succession plan and a true leadership pipeline. A succession plan answers "who's next for this specific leadership position?" A leadership pipeline answers "how do we ensure we always have a pool of ready, capable leaders for any future role?" It’s a long-term strategy for growing your own talent, a concept championed by thought leaders like the Leadership Pipeline Institute.
Think of it this way: recruitment isn't just about matching a job description. It’s about understanding the journey a professional takes from being a great individual contributor to becoming one of the great business leaders. A well-structured leadership pipeline model identifies the distinct stages, or passages, in that journey.
A foundational framework described in the Ivey Business Journal (2025) outlines six key leadership passages, starting with the first crucial step: the transition from managing self to managing others. This initial move is where the company's management foundation is built, and getting it wrong has long-term consequences for business success.
For fast-scaling businesses, particularly in a dynamic market like Indonesia, ignoring this is a huge risk. Without a pipeline, a single high-level departure can stall growth, damage team morale, and force a panicked, expensive external search. It creates a reactive cycle of hiring, whereas a pipeline fosters a proactive culture of managerial and leadership work.
What most business leaders overlook is that a vacant executive role isn’t just a hiring challenge—it’s a signal of deeper strategic gaps. The issue is rarely just a skills shortage. The real risk comes from failing to plan for leadership continuity and not having a talent pipeline in place. Without it, the organization faces significant business exposure.
Take the example of our F&B Marketing Director search, where the role had remained open for over a year. The impact went far beyond recruitment costs. The vacancy led to:
Each of these outcomes compounds over time, weakening both competitiveness and organizational resilience. This is a common scenario in founder-led companies where decision-making is centralized. As the business scales, the founder can't be everywhere, and without a layer of trusted, professional business managers, the entire operation becomes a bottleneck.
For multinationals entering the Indonesian market, this risk is amplified. What works in Singapore doesn't always translate to Jakarta. Without a plan to develop leadership locally, companies struggle with high expatriate costs and a disconnect from local business culture. A strong organization's leadership pipeline is what builds a sustainable competitive advantage.
Understanding the key leadership transitions is the first step to building a functional pipeline. Each leadership passage requires a fundamental shift in key skills, time allocation, and, most importantly, work values.
This is the most critical passage. A skilled individual contributor is rewarded for their personal results. But as first line managers, their success depends on getting results through others. First line managers frequently fail here because they continue to behave like individual contributors. They must shift from doing the work to delegating it and developing their people.
At this leadership level, a manager must divest from individual tasks completely. The focus shifts from managing others to managing managers, which means coaching first line managers, identifying future leaders, and applying a broader business strategy. This is where many pipelines get clogged. A manager in one of these manager of manager positions who hasn't truly passed the first stage will often micromanage, blocking the development of the company's leaders below them.
This is a massive leap. A functional manager (like a Head of Sales) thinks about their function's success. A business leader (a business general manager) must balance the needs of all functions to achieve profitability. It requires a shift from a functional strategy to a holistic business strategy, making trade-offs between short-term needs and long-term goals. Here, functional managers delegate responsibility on a much larger scale.
The final passage involves moving from running a business to leading an enterprise. A group manager or group executive must think about a portfolio of businesses, while an enterprise manager must see it as one integrated entity. The perspective shifts from strategic to visionary, focusing on the entire organization, its culture, and its place in the global market.
Here’s what I’ve learned from working with Indonesian market leaders: a leadership pipeline cannot be built in a vacuum. You can't rely on internal promotions alone, especially in rapidly changing industries. According to a 2025 report from Business Insider, the increasing rate of CEO exits highlights the immense challenge companies face in finding successors, reinforcing the need for this hybrid approach. The breakthrough for many of our clients came when we realized that strategic executive search is the accelerator for an internal pipeline.
External hires bring fresh perspectives and experience that may not exist within your company. The key is to integrate this external talent mapping with your internal development plans. You identify high-potential internal candidates, and simultaneously, you map the external market for the skills your company will need in two to three years.
This approach changed everything for our OTA client. We had a tight 1-week SLA to deliver CVs for several design leadership roles. By combining their internal high-potential list with our regional talent mapping across Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, we successfully placed two senior leaders. It proved that blending internal leadership development with strategic external hiring is how a leadership powered company is truly built.
Building a leadership pipeline isn't an HR exercise; it's a core business process that requires commitment from senior leaders.
Succession planning is typically focused on identifying immediate replacements for specific, often senior, roles. A leadership pipeline is a broader, more strategic approach focused on developing a continuous supply of leaders at all levels, ensuring the organization is prepared for future growth and change, not just departures.
Building a robust leadership pipeline is a long-term commitment. You can see initial results within 12-18 months by focusing on the critical transition from individual contributor to first line manager. However, developing senior business leaders and an enterprise manager can take 5-10 years of deliberate planning, coaching, and strategic job assignments.
The most effective strategy is a hybrid one. Promoting exclusively from within can lead to stale ideas and a lack of diverse perspectives. Hiring only externally damages morale and institutional knowledge. The best approach is to build a strong internal pipeline of future leaders while using strategic external executive search to fill critical gaps, accelerate growth, and bring in new key skills.
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