The Great Leadership Drought: Can We Still Grow Good Leaders?

Oct 1, 2025 | Articles, L&D Leadership & Culture, Litmos and Learning Industry News, Training Trends

Key Takeaways:

  • Fewer employees aspire to become managers due to increased job demands, burnout, and shifting values around work-life balance.
  • A shortage of willing leaders leads to innovation stagnation, higher turnover, and a crisis in succession planning.
  • Organizations can cultivate strong leaders by preparing employees for management roles, offering continuous learning, and fostering mentorship and support systems.
  • Strategic learning and development (L&D) is essential for overcoming the leadership drought and building a sustainable leadership pipeline.

Remember when the corner office and a “manager” title were the ultimate symbols of career success? For many, that aspiration has faded, replaced by a desire for balance, purpose, and well-being. We’re in the midst of a ‘Great Leadership Drought,’ and the signs are clear. According to recent LinkedIn survey data, only 30% of individual contributors say they want to become people managers in the next few years, and nearly 3 in 10 employees say their manager is too stressed to support them.

This isn’t just a pipeline problem; it’s a fundamental crisis in how we perceive and cultivate leadership. But is the drought inevitable? We don’t think so!

Let’s explore what’s causing fewer employees to seek leadership opportunities, the impact that a leadership drought might have on your business, and steps you can take to cultivate internal leadership.

Why is the Leadership Well Running Dry?

The reluctance to step into management isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s a rational response to a role that has become increasingly demanding and seemingly less rewarding. Several factors are contributing to this drought:

  • The Rise of the “Accidental Manager”: For decades, the path to management was a reward for technical excellence. A great salesperson becomes a sales manager; a brilliant coder becomes a development lead. The problem? The skills that make someone a top performer are rarely the same skills needed to lead, mentor, and inspire a team. These “accidental managers” are often thrown into the deep end with little to no training, leading to stress for them and frustration for their teams.
  • Burnout is Contagious: The modern workplace is a pressure cooker, and managers are feeling the heat more than ever. The Mercer Global Talent Trends report highlights that burnout is a significant concern. When employees see their managers consistently overwhelmed, working late, and unable to disconnect, the appeal of the role vanishes. That stress trickles down, creating a cycle of burnout that leaves managers without the capacity to properly support their teams, and leaves employees with no desire to inherit that stress.
  • Managers Get Pressure from Above and Below: Managers are caught in a difficult position. They are expected to implement strategic directives from senior leadership while simultaneously catering to the individual needs, career aspirations, and well-being of their direct reports. This constant balancing act can feel like a thankless, high-pressure squeeze with little autonomy.
  • Work is Undergoing a Fundamental Shift in Values: The pandemic was a catalyst for a massive re-evaluation of what we want from work. The new focus is on flexibility, mental health, and a healthy work-life balance. The traditional, always-on, high-stress image of a manager is simply not compatible with these evolving priorities for many talented individuals.

The Ripple Effect: Consequences of the Drought

A shortage of willing and able leaders isn’t a future problem; it’s impacting organizations right now. The consequences create a vicious cycle that can be hard to break:

  • Innovation Stagnates: Great leaders create an environment of psychological safety where team members feel empowered to take risks and share new ideas. Without this guidance, creativity can wither.
  • Employee Disengagement and Turnover: It’s a well-worn cliché because it’s true: people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. A lack of skilled leadership is a direct path to a disengaged workforce and higher attrition rates.
  • A Succession Planning Crisis:  When no one wants to step up, who will lead the company in five or ten years? A dry leadership pipeline poses a significant, long-term risk to organizational stability and growth.

Irrigating the Dry Spell: How to Cultivate Great Leaders

The good news is that this drought is not a permanent condition. With intentional effort, organizations can create an environment where great leaders can grow and thrive. Here’s how:

1. Shift from Promotion to Preparation:

Stop rewarding top performers with a management role they aren’t prepared for. Instead, create leadership development tracks for high-potential employees *before* they are ever promoted. Offer training in communication, conflict resolution, coaching, and emotional intelligence. This allows individuals to build leadership skills and even decide if the path is right for them.

2. Make Learning a Continuous Journey:

Leadership isn’t a one-and-done training course. Learning and development (L&D) can be a powerful tool to combat burnout. By providing continuous learning opportunities, you equip leaders with the tools to handle new challenges.

  • Embrace Microlearning: New managers are unsurprisingly, super busy. Offer short, digestible training modules that managers can access on demand, so that they can confidently gain or apply new skills on the job, when they’re needed.
  • Foster Mentorship: Pair new managers with experienced leaders who can provide guidance and support. This fosters a sense of community and wellbeing amongst new leaders, and reassures new managers that they don’t need to know everything about the job from day one.
  • Provide Relevant Resources: Ensure managers have access to a library of resources on topics like mental health, performance management, and team building. This signals your business’s investment in the psychological safety of your managers, and empowers them to learn new skills continuously.

3. Redefine and Support the Manager Role:

We need to change what it means to be a manager, which means updating our expectations and providing the proper infrastructure help managers not only meet, but exceed those expectations.

  • Focus on Coaching: Shifting the emphasis from administrative tasks to coaching and developing team members can lead to more fulfilling professional relationships between managers and their reports, and better team performance. But successful coaching can only happen in businesses that build coaching into managerial roles – giving managers the time and capacity for this deeper work.
  • Support the Supporters: We can’t expect managers to pour from an empty cup. They need their own support systems, including access to coaching, mental health resources, and peer support groups.

4. Build a Culture of Psychological Safety:

Create an environment where it’s safe to learn and grow. Leaders, especially new ones, need to know they can make mistakes, ask for help, and be vulnerable without fear of negative consequences. This starts at the top.

The Forecast is Changing

The great leadership drought is a serious challenge, but it’s one we can overcome. It requires a fundamental shift in how we think about leadership—from a title to be attained to a skill to be cultivated. By investing in proactive, continuous, and human-centric development, we can turn the tide and ensure a healthy ecosystem of great leaders for years to come.

If you haven’t already picked up on our core message, here’s the long and short of it: strategic L&D is a critical tool for addressing the leadership drought. What is less obvious is how to execute impactful L&D in the face of these unprecedented challenges. The first step is advocating for L&D in your organization. For practical advice on making the business case for investing in training programs, take action and read Advocating for L&D in the Workplace here.