Enhance Business Success by Building A Deep Bench

Cathie Leimbach • June 27, 2023

People often talk about the merits of sports teams having deep benches. Ensuring the teams’ players have a breadth and depth of skills is seen as preparing for a successful sports season, but many businesses aren’t following suit. Let’s consider how workplace managers could benefit from adopting some common practices of sports team coaches.


Sports coaches build deep benches by recruiting talented individuals, focusing on further development of their abilities, fostering a winning attitude, and instilling accountability. They prioritize enhancing individual skills and strategically rotating players to determine their best-fit position. Open communication and constructive feedback are emphasized, creating a collaborative environment where athletes feel valued and motivated. Coaches also encourage teamwork and learning from one another, promoting healthy competition and pushing everyone to excel.


When business leaders and managers follow suit, their organizations tend to flourish.  They hire people with potential and provide training and coaching to prepare them for success. They give them a variety of opportunities and monitor their performance to determine the best fit position for each position within the company. As a result, employees feel supported and are positioned to be successful, increasing employee loyalty and the company’s bottom line. 


When managers invest in developing people around them, they are ensuring operational continuity by having employees prepared to address unexpected challenges or promptly fill a vacant position. This mitigates the risk of spikes in workload or long vacancies in key positions. Development of a deep bench also fosters a culture of growth and development. People are equipped to be flexible, adaptable, and resilient allowing the company to quickly respond to market changes and seize emerging opportunities.


What is one thing you can do to build a deeper bench that will enhance your organization’s  success in our ever-changing business environment?

When Leadership Feels “Fine”… But Results Tell a Different Story

By Cathie Leimbach • January 13, 2026
Many leaders feel things are mostly on track. Goals are set. Meetings happen. People stay busy. On the surface, it all looks fine . But underneath, small cracks often tell a different story. You may notice work getting redone, decisions slowing down, or people quietly avoiding ownership. These aren’t just workflow problems. They’re leadership signals — and they’re easy to miss when everyone is moving fast. Leaders often believe they’ve been clear. They think people know what’s expected and who owns what. And they assume that if something was wrong, someone would speak up. But in real life, expectations get interpreted in different ways. Ownership can feel risky. And many people stay silent just to keep the peace. That gap between what leaders intend and what teams experience is where performance starts to slip. A few simple questions can help reveal what’s really going on: · Where is work quality lacking? · What decisions keep getting stuck? · Where do leaders step in instead of letting others own it? Start noticing those patterns. They point to exactly where stronger leadership can make the biggest difference. 👉 See what a 10–15% leadership shift could mean for your bottom line. View the Leadership ROI Chart .

Why Leadership Skills Matter More Than Ever in 2026

By Cathie Leimbach • January 6, 2026
People are essential to your business success—yet many organizations underestimate the return on leadership development. Payroll and benefits alone account for 15 to 60% of operating expenses for most companies. In industries with lower payroll percentages, the trade-off is often expensive equipment—but without well-trained people, even the best tools underperform. The truth is simple: mediocre employee skills produce mediocre business results. What’s often overlooked is where performance and engagement are truly shaped. Employees themselves only control about 30% of the factors that drive engagement and high performance. Leaders control the other 70%. Despite this, only 18% of organizations say their leaders are very effective at achieving business goals, even though 71% offer leadership training. Why the gap? Much of that training focuses on strategy or systems—not on people leadership skills that directly improve performance. When leaders do build those skills, the impact is powerful. Employees who feel supported give 57% more effort and are 87% less likely to leave. Organizations can see earnings increase by as much as 147%. In fact, leadership training delivers a $7 return for every $1 invested—more than double the return on technology investments. Since leadership capability is being touted as the most critical factor for organizational success in 2026, it’s worth asking: Which people leadership best practices have your managers truly adopted? What currently weak areas are the most important to strengthen this year? A short leadership quiz can surface strengths and growth areas that aren’t always obvious—especially when you take time to talk through what it reveals.