Why Emerging Leaders Should Be a Strategic Priority
Senior leadership across organizations have a growing list of strategic challenges and priorities to navigate. Staying agile and improving amidst uncertainty, keeping up with AI and digital transformation, accelerating innovation and improving efficiency, attracting and retaining talent, keeping employees engaged, and cultivating the cultures that make all these things possible. It goes without saying that leadership competence is a critical element in each of these domains, but in many organizations, the focus is skewed toward developing senior executives while the largest segment of future leadership capacity—Emerging Leaders—is underprepared and under-supported.
Emerging Leaders are first-time managers, high-potential individual contributors, or rising team leads who are stepping into influence, often for the first time. These are the people most likely to shape the next decade of your culture, collaboration, and performance. But according to DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast, fewer than 3 in 10 HR leaders believe they have a strong bench of ready-now leaders.
Globally, organizations spend over $370 billion annually on leadership development (with the U.S. accounting for roughly $166 billion of that total). 58% of organizations spend more than $1,000 per learner on senior leadership training, while only 39% invest that much in high-potential leaders, and just 32% for mid-level managers.
For many, the entry into leadership often feels less like a confident handoff and more like a high-stakes improvisation. While a promotion may have been the goal, what comes with it isn’t just an expansion of responsibility and a pay raise, but an identity shift—one these leaders are expected to navigate without a roadmap. It’s a shift in mindset, skillset, and relationship dynamics, and a lack of preparation comes at a cost.
One study found that nearly 60% of new managers never receive formal training. Another revealed that 26% of first-time leaders did not feel ready for their role. In those early stages, about one in five are rated poorly by their teams. This trend does not point to personal shortcomings. It reflects a systemic underinvestment in one of the most critical inflection points of a leader’s development.
The Return on Investing Early
Overlooking early-stage leadership development increases the risk of performance challenges. More importantly, it reinforces habits that leaders often carry for years. These can include an avoidance or inability to delegate effectively, a hyperfocus on perfectionism, and relying on positional authority rather than trust.
Organizations with strong frontline leadership tend to see better engagement, retention, and business outcomes. Gallup has shown that managers account for up to 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores. When a new leader struggles, the impact often spreads across teams and functions.
Research from Deloitte and others shows that early development delivers long-term returns. Leaders who receive support in their first year are more likely to grow into higher-impact roles, remain with their organization, and serve as cultural anchors over time.
The challenges that emerging leaders encounter are often deceptively simple:
- “I don’t want to micromanage, but I’m scared to let go.”
- “I’m still trying to prove myself, and that makes it hard to prioritize developing others.”
- “I feel caught between big-picture expectations and daily execution.”
- “I want to lead in a way that feels real—but I don’t know what that means yet.”
These concerns show up in day-to-day behavior, communication, and culture. Rather than providing one-size-fits-all advice, these leaders can benefit significantly from support in navigating the shift from doing the work to leading the work, and doing so with greater clarity, confidence, and authenticity.
Three Essential Skillsets Every Emerging Leader Needs
- Alignment
Effective leadership begins with creating shared understanding and direction. This is especially critical in fast-moving or ambiguous contexts. - Delegation
True delegation is not about offloading tasks. It’s about building trust, growing team capacity, and learning to release control in service of a bigger purpose. - Feedback
Leaders must develop the courage to speak honestly, the presence to listen fully, and the skill to offer feedback that strengthens relationships and drives improvement.
These three capabilities form the foundation of leadership effectiveness. They are not advanced techniques reserved for senior leaders. They are the baseline competencies that set leaders up for long-term success.
Proactive Care vs. Triage
If you are managing an emerging leader—or responsible for developing talent—this moment is your opportunity.
Waiting until someone is overwhelmed or underperforming only increases the cost of intervention. When we support leaders early, we do more than improve individual performance. We strengthen the systems and relationships around them, teams function more smoothly, communication becomes clearer, and people are more likely to stay because they feel seen, supported, and invested in.
Why the Old Leadership Playbook No Longer Fits
Today’s Emerging Leaders are not entering leadership with the same expectations—or motivations—as the generations before them. Most of them are Millennials and, increasingly, Gen Z, and they bring with them a very different worldview: one shaped by constant change, rising complexity, and a deep desire to do meaningful work in a way that feels compatible with their values.
Traditional leadership development, with its rigid models and top-down assumptions, often misses the mark for this population. What they’re looking for is not just a skill set—it is a sense of alignment, purpose, and relational integrity.
| Traditional Leadership Development | What Emerging Leaders Want Instead |
| Climb the ladder | Evolve the system |
| Top-down authority | Collaborative influence |
| Train the “high potentials” | Develop everyone, democratize growth |
| Focus on skills and behaviors | Focus on self-awareness, identity, and relationships |
| “Executive presence” and polish | Authenticity, vulnerability, and inner alignment |
| Formal training programs | Experiential, coaching-rich, real-time learning |
| Leadership = control, decisiveness | Leadership = co-creation, adaptability, emotional fluency |
| Leadership is earned through time or title | Leadership is a posture available to all, now |
When we design development experiences that speak to these deeper values, we unlock more than just high-performance. We grow leaders who are not only capable, but deeply committed to leading with clarity, courage, and care.
Sources
DDI. Global Leadership Forecast 2023. Retrieved from https://www.ddiworld.com/research/global-leadership-forecast-2023
DDI. The ROI of Leadership Development – 2023 Study. Retrieved from https://21464110.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/21464110/NLW%20-%20ROI%20Files/nlw-roi-of-leadership-development-study-2023-full-report-1.pdf
HPT by DTS. 20 Leadership Development Statistics That Prove ROI. Retrieved from https://blog.hptbydts.com/20-statistics-on-leadership-development
Gallup. State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders. Retrieved from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236441/state-american-manager-report.aspx
Deloitte. Global Human Capital Trends. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/human-capital/articles/introduction-human-capital-trends.html
Kellogg School of Management. How First-Time Managers Can Make the Successful Jump to Leadership. Retrieved from https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/how-first-time-managers-can-make-the-successful-jump-to-leadership
Impellus. Autumn 2017 Survey – First-Time Manager Challenges. Retrieved from https://impellus.com/articles/autumn-2017-survey/
