Why Your Leadership Pipeline Should Already Be Three Years Deep

I've had a version of this conversation more times than I can count over the past 30 years.

A CEO or general manager reaches out, often in a moment of pressure. Someone senior is leaving, or they're thinking about their own retirement, or a key manager has just resigned unexpectedly. And the question is always some version of the same thing: who's ready to step up?

The honest answer, in too many clubs, is nobody. Not because the talent isn't there, but because the investment in that talent was never made.

This is the leadership pipeline conversation that comes too late. And it's one I want to talk about this week, drawing on three extraordinary guests I had on The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast this month - and on three decades of watching this pattern play out in clubs across Australia.

The Retirement Trap

The clubs I worry about most aren't the ones in obvious crisis. They're the ones where everything looks fine on the surface, but there's a CEO approaching the end of their tenure with no clear successor in sight.

In registered clubs, this happens more than people admit. The CEO has been the constant. The culture, the strategy, the relationships with the board - so much of it lives with one person. And the assumption, often unspoken, is that someone will emerge when the time comes. That there'll be a natural candidate. That the pipeline will take care of itself.

It doesn't.

The clubs that have a clear path forward, that can point to two or three leaders who are genuinely ready for more responsibility, didn't get there by accident. They started building that pipeline years in advance. Not when the pressure arrived, but long before anyone was thinking about who might leave.

Put The People First

Christin Marvin, author and hospitality leadership coach, joined me on the podcast this month, and her People, Process, Profit framework cuts right to the heart of this.

Christin's point is simple: you cannot sustain profit if you're constantly replacing managers who were never properly prepared for their roles. The investment in people isn't what comes after you've sorted the operations. It's the foundation everything else rests on.

In registered clubs, we have a deep habit of promoting loyalty. We reward the person who showed up every shift, who knew every member by name, who never caused problems. And that loyalty absolutely deserves recognition. But loyalty and leadership capability aren't the same thing. Promoting someone into a leadership role without a structured development plan doesn't set them up to succeed. It sets them up to struggle, and the club (and the rest of your team), absorbs the consequences.

The clubs with strong pipelines have honest conversations about capability. Not cruel ones. But clear ones. And they invest in closing the gap before the pressure arrives.

The Connector In The Middle

Hanna Bauer, founder of Heartnomics, introduced me to an interesting analogy where she described middle managers as the Zapier of an organisation - the layer that connects the CEO's strategic intent with the daily reality of the frontline team.

When that layer is underdeveloped, overloaded, or unclear about their role, the whole organisation fragments. The strategy doesn't reach the floor, the frontline team operates on assumptions, and standards drift.

Ask yourself honestly: do your middle managers truly know the standards and values within your organisation? And can they demonstrate them on the floor, coach others to them, and hold their team to them consistently?

If your middle managers can't do that yet, your leadership pipeline isn't as strong as you might think. And the time to address that isn't when you're six months from a transition. It's now, while there's room to invest properly.

The Pipeline Leaks When Leaders Are Running On Empty

Rich Ellis also joined me this month to talk about energy as a leadership asset, and one of the most powerful points he made was this: A burnt-out manager cannot build a great team.

When your managers are running on empty and calling it commitment, they don't have the bandwidth to develop others, notice who's struggling, or think beyond the next service. The pipeline doesn't just stall. It starts to leak. Your most capable people look at the leaders above them, see what leadership costs, and decide they'd rather not – and who can blame them!

Developing your future leaders means developing their capacity to sustain performance over time. Energy management, recovery, and sustainable habits are the foundation stones for a pipeline that holds.

What The Well-prepared Clubs Do Differently

After 30 years working with registered clubs, hotels, and hospitality venues across Australia, the pattern I see in the organisations with genuinely strong leadership pipelines is consistent.

They started early. They didn't wait for a vacancy or their imminent retirement to trigger the conversation. They identified their people, invested in their development, and gave them real responsibility before they needed them to step up. They treated leadership development as an ongoing commitment, not a crisis response.

They also understood that a pipeline isn't a succession chart on a whiteboard. It's a living investment in people's skills, confidence, and connection to the organisation's purpose.

If you're approaching a transition, or if you're simply honest enough to admit that your pipeline isn't where it needs to be, the best time to start is always before the pressure hits.

Watch this week's episode of The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast: https://youtu.be/zAIBUSTpf44

Listen to the full conversations with Christin Marvin, Hanna Bauer, and Rich Ellis on The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast: https://www.michellepascoe.com/The-Michelle-Pascoe-Hospitality-Podcast

Explore the Middle Management Movement leadership development program: https://www.michellepascoe.com/traininganddevelopmentprograms