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Life sciences is facing a leadership crisis. Hereβs why adaptive leadership, emotional intelligence, and succession planning are non-negotiables for companies looking to drive business impact.
Iβve worked across healthcare, life sciences, and leadership development long enough to spot the pattern: our systems are still trying to solve 2025 problems with a 1995 mindset. Β
A found that 75% of leadership development programs fail to deliver meaningful business impact. Why? Because most arenβt designed for the context of todayβs environment.
The pace of change in technology, global policy, workforce dynamics, and societal values has left too many leadership pipelines broken or underdeveloped. While L&D and HR teams are asked to fix this without the resources or executive support to do it right.
The result of this is a middle management crunch. One thatβs eroding our culture, crippling retention, and putting the long-term viability of organizations at risk.
If you're in any leadership seat today, youβre navigating two worlds: the business world (profitability, accountability, performance) and the people world (engagement, well-being, culture). Β
When things like immigration raids, tariffs, wars, travel bans, and generational tension hit simultaneously, leaders who canβt adapt or worse, wonβt become a liability.
Iβve seen organizations struggle to respond to geopolitical disruptions while still trying to hit quarterly targets and keep their teams intact. The leaders who made it through werenβt just strategic; they were emotionally intelligent, empathetic, and clear communicators who built trust and resilience in their teams.
HR and L&D professionals care deeply about developing people. Thatβs not the issue. The problem is that at the CEO and CFO level, we still lack consistent buy-in for scalable succession planning. Β
Many teams are asked to retain, recruit, create talent mobility, and enhance culture without additional support.
Thatβs why weβre seeing high turnover in the C-suite across life sciences. ΒιΆΉΉϋΆ³΄«Γ½βre burning out our current leaders and not developing the next wave. Β
The numbers speak for themselves. According to the, 80% of organizations still lack confidence in their leadership pipelines.
Employee churn is expensive, both financially and culturally. When we lose tenured leaders without a succession plan in place, weβre not just losing talent; weβre losing institutional wisdom, mentorship, and momentum.
Hereβs one reason L&D gets cut first in tough times: weβve historically reported outputs, not outcomes.
Enrollment numbers and course completion rates donβt tell the story executives need. A better approach, as exemplified bys CLO recently at a conference, is tying learning initiatives directly to strategic prioritiesβdemonstrating how programs drive innovation, reduce costs, or improve retention.
Gartner backs this up: companies that align learning with business strategy are 2.8x more likely to report high workforce performance.
If youβre still tracking butts-in-seats, itβs time to move to business impact.
ΒιΆΉΉϋΆ³΄«Γ½ now, we have five generations working side-by-side. Thatβs unprecedented and deeply underleveraged. Β
Rather than harnessing generational diversity as a strength, too many organizations focus on the gaps. research shows that only 6 per cent of survey respondents strongly agree that their leaders are equipped to lead such a workforce effectively.
Mentorship is an effective strategy for leveraging the strengths across multiple generations. At Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, for example, they retained retiring nurses as part-time mentors, pairing them with younger professionals to ensure knowledge transfer, leadership development, and a strong sense of community. It worked. Engagement and retention both improved.
I donβt like the word βmanagerβ because it boxes people in. Leadership isnβt about managing people, itβs about influence, adaptability, and driving outcomes, whether you have direct reports or not.
What makes a modern leadership program effective?
Crucially, leaders also need coaching skills. ΒιΆΉΉϋΆ³΄«Γ½βre still not investing enough in leaders who know how to coach or be coached. Thatβs a huge gap.
ΒιΆΉΉϋΆ³΄«Γ½ talk a lot about emotional intelligence, but very few organizations are embedding it into leadership KPIs or holding leaders accountable.
Younger generations arenβt just asking for empathy because they expect it. They expect leaders who listen, reflect, and engage in meaningful conversations. If your leaders still think feedback is a one-way street, youβve got a retention problem brewing.
Emotional intelligence isnβt soft. Itβs strategic. It helps leaders build inclusive cultures, adapt quickly, and drive real engagement.
If I had five minutes with you, hereβs what Iβd challenge you to prioritize in the next 12 months:
Iβm encouraged by the influx of new thinking into our industryβleaders from transportation, retail, logistics, and beyond, bringing fresh perspectives into life sciences.
I didnβt come from L&D or HR myself. I came from business leadership. That perspective helps me bridge the gap between strategy and people. And Iβm seeing more HR and L&D leaders stepping into that same space claiming their seat at the table, telling their stories, and setting the agenda.
To those leaders: keep going. Keep pushing. The future of work depends on it.
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