Sound familiar? Building your people infrastructure is not entirely unlike designing your software infrastructure. But this shouldn't be surprising. Every organization has its own culture, its own strategy and its own management style. Generic leadership training, like packaged software, will go only so far.

So when you start thinking seriously about developing your leadership bench strength, avoid the skills-only nostrum. Tools alone are no substitute for insight and ethics -- the products of the educated and mature managerial mind.

-- Paul Glen helps technical organizations to grow better leaders and managers to perform at their best. He is the author of the award-winning book Leading Geeks. Contact him at info@paulglen.com.