Who’s Ready to Lead? Building Internal Talent with Competency-Based Career Paths

Instead of fearing the “Who’s ready to lead?” question, here’s how competency-based career paths can help you build internal talent.

It’s a scenario every business and HR leader dreads: a critical role opens up and suddenly the pressure is on to find someone who can step in. You want to promote from within, but you simply don’t know who’s actually ready. Without a trusted snapshot of your employee readiness, you’re left to rely on gut instinct, popularity, or tenure. And a mismatched promotion can quickly lead to poor performance, discouraged employees, and missed opportunities for growth.

Competency-based succession planning offers a way forward. Instead of fearing the “Who’s ready to lead?” question, here’s how to build internal talent with competency-based career paths.

The Internal Mobility Dilemma

Without visibility into employees’ current skills and growth potential, promotion decisions become risky. And the cost of a misstep can be high.

A promotion made on instinct rather than evidence can result in the wrong person in the wrong role, damaging both performance and morale. On the flip side, overlooking someone who is ready can leave employees feeling frustrated, held back, and ultimately disengaged.

Too often, the real challenge isn’t a lack of talent — it’s a lack of structure. Leaders need a clear, consistent way to distinguish potential from employee readiness and to guide team members in progressing toward their next step.

Succession Planning at Every Level

Most business leaders agree that succession planning is a smart move, but many don’t take sufficient action to strengthen the company for the next generation. In its recent study, Towards the C-Suite 2035, professional staffing provider Robert Half found that 59% of C-suite and executive leaders “are worried about finding suitable leaders for their company over the next decade.” However, only 37% are creating a formal strategy to replace their leaders.

And it’s not just the C-suite that should be planning ahead. In small and mid-size organizations, continuity depends on much more than just the executive team. The sudden loss of a director, manager, or even a key technical lead can create ripple effects across the business. That’s why effective succession planning should look at least three to four levels down the management chain — identifying critical roles, mapping the skills needed to step into them, and preparing potential successors well before the need arises.

Robert Half found that 59% of C-suite and executive leaders “are worried about finding suitable leaders for their company over the next decade.” However, only 37% are creating a formal strategy to replace their leaders.

Taking this broader view reduces organizational risk and builds confidence across the workforce. Employees see that leadership opportunities aren’t confined to the top but exist throughout the organization.

Beyond Promotions: The Value of Ongoing Career Growth

Career growth doesn’t always mean moving up the ladder. Lateral moves, skill-building opportunities, and stretch assignments can be just as powerful for engagement and retention.

Today’s workforce, especially younger generations of workers, wants to see a future with their employer. If they invest their energy and skills, they expect their company to invest in their growth. That doesn’t always mean a new title; it might mean expanding responsibilities, taking on a cross-functional project, or gaining skills that open new doors down the road.

Deloitte’s 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, found that only 6% of Gen Z cite reaching a leadership position as their primary career goal. But that doesn’t mean they lack ambition. Instead, they prioritize the “trifecta” of work/life balance, learning and development, and competitive pay.

For employers, this shift is an opportunity. A competency-based approach allows leaders to map growth both vertically and laterally, across the company. When employees have the structure and visibility to build and apply new skills, the entire talent pool gets stronger. Internal mobility ensures businesses aren’t simply filling today’s roles; they’re preparing the workforce for tomorrow.

Competency-Based Career Paths as the Solution

So how do you move from guesswork to confidence? The answer is competency-based career paths.

A competency-based career path defines the specific skills, behaviors, and knowledge needed for success in each role. Rather than relying on job descriptions that only list tasks, competency paths create a clear roadmap: here’s what’s required today, here’s what’s next, and here’s how to get there.

For employees, this transparency is empowering. They can see exactly what’s expected if they want to advance and what skills they’ll need if they’re interested in a lateral or vertical move. For leaders, it provides an objective way to evaluate employee readiness and identify gaps. Competency-based promotion decisions become data-driven rather than subjective.

This approach also levels the playing field. Instead of advancing the loudest voice or the longest tenure, organizations promote based on demonstrated capabilities. That leads to better fits, more equitable opportunities, and stronger trust in the process.

Building an Internal Talent Pipeline

Competency-based career paths also strengthen succession planning by helping organizations proactively develop a pipeline of talent. Here’s how business and HR leaders can get started:

1. Identify critical roles. Focus on positions that would create risk if left unfilled.
2. Define competencies. Map the skills, knowledge, and behaviors required for success in those roles. Update the job descriptions to reflect the required and desired competencies.
3. Assess employees. Evaluate current team members with skills assessments to understand strengths and gaps.
4. Create targeted development plans. Offer training, stretch assignments, and/or mentorships to help employees grow.
5. Keep it dynamic. Regularly review and update your talent pipeline as the business evolves.

Managing this process and skills data set manually can be time-consuming and inconsistent. That’s where software can make all the difference. A flexible skills management platform, such as Avilar’s WebMentor Skills™, gives leaders real-time visibility into workforce strengths and gaps, making it easier to identify who’s ready today and who is making progress in their development.

From Assessment to Action

Competency-based career paths shouldn’t just identify employee readiness at a single point in time. Ideally, they are guides that map to current skills and competencies, helping to guide employees from where they are today to where they want to be.

For example:

• An employee might be strong in technical skills but need leadership development before managing a team.
• Another might have the right leadership behaviors but lack experience in a specific area.
• In both cases, a clear competency framework highlights the gaps and suggests the next steps.

This makes development actionable. Leaders can assign projects or provide training tailored to individual needs, while employees feel ownership of their growth. Over time, this builds a stronger, more agile workforce.

The result is that when the question arises, “Who’s ready to lead?,” you’ll already know the answer.

FAQs: Getting Started With Competency-Based Promotions

Q1: Isn’t succession planning really just for big companies?

Not at all. In fact, smaller organizations often feel the pain of talent gaps even more. If you only have one or two people who can step into a key role, you can’t afford to guess at employee readiness. A structured approach to succession planning helps small and mid-sized businesses build resilience and avoid costly missteps.

Q2: How do you actually assess whether someone is “ready” for a promotion?

Readiness isn’t about gut instinct or how long someone’s been around. With a competency framework, you compare employees’ current skills and behaviors against what’s needed for a role. That way, you can see where they’re strong, where they need development, and how close they are to stepping up. This turns internal mobility from guesswork into a strategic advantage.

Q3: Are competency-based career paths primarily about promotions?

Not at all. Career paths help employees see opportunities for both promotion and other career moves within the company. For some, that means preparing for leadership or specialized roles. For others, it may mean exploring a different function, building new skills, or taking on cross-department projects. By making both promotions and lateral moves visible, career paths help employees stay engaged while ensuring the organization builds a versatile, future-ready workforce.

Key Takeaway: Employee Readiness Shouldn’t be a Guessing Game

By adopting competency-based career paths, organizations can transform promotions and lateral moves from risky bets into confident, skills data-driven decisions. The payoff is stronger succession planning, higher employee engagement, and more opportunities for internal mobility. With the right approach, leaders can stop asking “Who’s ready?” and start saying “We’re ready.”

 

Brandon Hall Group just shared an assessment of Avilar’s WebMentor Skills™ platform, touting Avilar’s “Tailored Solutions for Complex Workforce Challenges.” Succession planning is an excellent example of a specific workforce problem where robust and flexible skills management software can help you track and manage skills data across the company, across time. If you’re wondering how to get started with competency-based career paths or succession planning, download our Competency Management Toolkit for tips on getting started. Or contact us to see if Avilar’s WebMentor Skills™ can help.

 

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