Something is seriously amiss in the state of management today. More and more CEOs are failing, but the dearth of CEOs capable of placing their companies on a sustainable footing is as much a symptom as a cause of the malaise affecting corporate management. The true crisis of leadership is the stagnant state of corporate leadership development. Because companies don’t properly hone their unit managers’ leadership abilities, they never fill their succession pipelines. And because unit managers are stagnating, companies have difficulty executing at every level, compounding the crisis. Ram Charan shows how top companies approach leadership development as a core competency. Leadership development must be a hands-on activity, integral to the business and involving leaders at all levels.

Ram Charan  is co-author (with Larry Bossidy) of 2002’s runaway bestseller Execution (670,000 copies sold). He is a highly sought-after advisor to corporations, boards, CEOs and senior executives in companies ranging from start-ups to the Fortune 500, including GE, Dupont, and Colgate-Palmolive. He is also author of What the CEO Wants You to Know and Know-How and co-author of Confronting Reality and The Leadership Pipeline, and writes a highly-regarded column for Yahoo! Finance. Charan has taught at the Harvard Business School and the Kellogg School of Northwestern University.