Leadership gaps are no longer just a talent problem; they are a business risk. Across industries, companies are grappling with the same issue: the pipeline of ready, relevant and resilient leaders seems to be slowing down. According to a 2023 Deloitte report, 89% of global organisations consider leadership development a top priority, yet less than 15% believe they have a strong bench of future-ready leaders.
This isn’t because talent is lacking. It’s because the expectations of leadership have shifted. Organisations today need professionals who can lead across complexity, adapt to change, understand digital ecosystems, and align teams around both purpose and performance. These aren’t traits that can simply be spotted in a CV or measured in an interview. They are cultivated over time through exposure, experience, and structured development.
For many businesses, the answer has long been to recruit externally for senior roles. But this is becoming increasingly unreliable. External hires often struggle with cultural fit, lack organisational context, and take time to deliver impact. In fact, research shows that nearly 40% of external leaders fail within the first 18 months.
Which raises a vital question: what if the leaders you need are already in your organisation?
The business case for growing leaders from within
Promoting from within is not just a sentimental HR strategy; it’s a smart business move. Internal talent already understands the company’s values, history, informal networks, and operational realities. They come with credibility, loyalty, and often untapped potential. But potential alone is not enough. It needs direction, exposure, and structured support.
Investing in leadership development sends a clear signal: the company trusts its people to step into bigger roles. This boosts retention, improves succession planning, and strengthens institutional memory. It also reduces the risks of hiring mismatches or cultural dissonance that external recruits often bring.
More importantly, internal leadership development empowers mid-level professionals to shift from execution to strategy, from function to enterprise, and from managing work to leading people. It builds leaders who are not only skilled but also deeply invested in the success of their organisation.
What a modern leadership development model should look like
Old-school leadership programmes focused on passive learning: lectures, case studies, and off-the-shelf content. But leadership today requires a different pedagogy. It needs to be hands-on, reflective, and deeply connected to real-world business challenges.
A proven executive growth model should include several key elements. First, it must build strategic capability, enabling participants to think beyond their current roles and functions and to see the business as an interconnected whole. This shift in perspective is often what separates managers from leaders.
Second, learning should happen across industries and contexts. When professionals from banking, IT, manufacturing, pharma, and services interact in a shared learning space, it sparks new ways of thinking. Peer learning becomes just as powerful as classroom learning.
Third, the model must embed learning in actual work. Real-time application, in the form of action learning projects or strategic assignments, helps convert theory into impact. Professionals not only learn new tools and frameworks—they test them, refine them, and build confidence to use them back at work.
Finally, great leadership development requires reflection. Through mentoring, coaching, and continuous feedback, participants learn about themselves, their strengths, biases, leadership styles, and blind spots. This self-awareness is what fuels sustained growth.
Executive education is not ‘going back to school’
One of the biggest barriers to leadership development is the fear that it will disrupt day-to-day work. Mid-career professionals often resist traditional learning formats because they don’t want to step out of their jobs or return to a classroom environment that feels disconnected from reality.
Modern executive education understands this. The best programmes are modular and hybrid, offering the flexibility to learn while continuing in current roles. They blend online and in-person learning, ensure learning happens in short bursts rather than long blocks, and provide support through coaching and peer interaction.
These programmes are not about academic grades. They are about real growth. They offer frameworks, not formulas. Context, not just content. And they are rooted in the reality of today’s business challenges, from digital transformation and sustainability to stakeholder capitalism and cross-generational leadership.
How SPJIMR’s PGEMP transforms mid-level managers into enterprise leaders
One of the most respected models in this space is the Post Graduate Executive Management Programme (PGEMP) by SPJIMR. Designed specifically for working professionals, PGEMP follows a 21-month modular format that allows participants to upskill without leaving their jobs.
Learn more about the PGEMP curriculum
What sets PGEMP apart is its focus on integrated, cross-functional learning. Participants don’t just become better finance heads or marketing leads; they become well-rounded business leaders. The curriculum is built around real challenges, with projects that tie directly to the participant’s organisation. Faculty members are not just academic experts but industry practitioners, ensuring that learning remains relevant and contextual.
The cohort model brings together professionals from diverse sectors, which enhances learning and sparks cross-pollination of ideas. Over time, this leads to an expanded network, new insights, and broader thinking. Add to that personalised mentoring and continuous feedback, and the result is a transformative leadership journey.
Alumni of PGEMP have gone on to take on CXO roles, lead business units, drive digital transformation, and, in many cases, shift from execution to innovation within their firms.
Anuj Goel (batch 64), an investment banking consultant, joined the PGEMP programme at SPJIMR to enhance his career after a decade in the industry. He highlights the value of peer learning, gaining insights from diverse industries and perspectives over 21 months. The programme’s faculty and curriculum helped him broaden his business understanding, making him a more well-rounded professional.
Leaders aren’t born. They’re built. If a business is struggling to find leaders who can match the pace and complexity of their organisation, the solution might not be outside but within. Their future COO, business head or transformation lead may already be in the room, just waiting to be developed. With the right executive growth model, they can unlock that potential. And in doing so, they don’t just build leaders; they future-proof their organisation.
Register your interest for this programme
Please fill in the following details
