Building a Leadership Pipeline in Procurement
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Building a Leadership Pipeline in Procurement

Carrie Mathes

Carrie Mathes

December 3, 2025

In this leadership blog series, we bring voices from the procurement front lines to discuss what leadership looks like in procurement and how to develop tomorrow’s procurement leaders to enhance organizations and the procurement profession as a whole.  

If you want a strong procurement team with a leadership pipeline, you have to invest in your people. That means helping them grow and giving them opportunities to lead, even if they don’t have a leadership title.  

What a Leadership Pipeline Looks Like on Small and Large Procurement Teams 

This idea applies to large and small procurement teams alike, and believe me, I know there are differences. I’ve worked in both types of teams—first, working for a small municipality that covered nine square miles with a very small staff, and now working for a large county that covers 10,000 square miles and employs over 8,000 people. 

In a small organization, you wear a lot of hats. Typically, there are fewer layers of leadership, and there may not be opportunities for upward mobility.  But you’ll be heavily involved in what’s going on, and you’ll be expected to take on new tasks and responsibilities because there isn’t anyone else to hand them off to. 

It’s important to invest in your staff regardless of size.  If they stay, you want them to make decisions with confidence. Plus, you may need them to move into a higher role if it becomes available. And if their career grows too large for the organization, you want to have given them the skills and confidence they’ll need to be successful somewhere else.  

In a larger organization, the structure may look different, but the need remains the same. People still want to feel valued and see a future for themselves. They might not wear as many hats, but there’s a risk that they will become too siloed. They still need to make decisions with confidence and collaborate with their peers and partners in other departments.  

In both cases, being intentional about developing leadership skills is essential to ensure your team has the skills they need to make effective decisions and work well with others. 

Turning Development into Action 

It’s one thing to talk about developing leaders. It’s another thing to actually do it.  

My assistant manager and I have always listened to ideas from our team. But about a year ago, we realized we had a running list of great ideas sitting in notebooks that weren’t being executed. It simply was not feasible or practical for the two of us to lead them all. 

So, we developed a way to let staff take ownership of those ideas and lead the work themselves through a program we named IMPACT, which stands for Initiative for Managing Procurement Advancement and Continuous Transformation. (This is not the same as the IMPACT program that is part of the NIGP Leadership Summit.)  

We assigned projects that aligned with our goals and gave staff the structure and support to run with them. Each project had a charter, milestones, and regular check-ins with a facilitator who helped remove roadblocks. Then we stepped back and let our staff lead. 

In the first year, we assigned 20 projects and finished 12 of them. One was focused on automation and saved 1,000 to 3,000 hours of manual processing. Another was focused on outreach, including creating multilingual resources to help more vendors participate in the bidding process. The best part was the growth we saw in our people as they led something from start to finish and attained real results. 

Pipeline development doesn’t always have to come from formal training or a big budget. Sometimes it just means trusting your people to lead as they figure things out along the way, with you providing support if needed.  

What Great Leaders Have in Common 

When I think about what makes a great leader, I always come back to the same eight qualities: 

  1. Visionary thinker and strategic planner: They can see what’s ahead and develop long-term strategies and goals to get there. 

  1. Emotional Intelligence: They can recognize, understand, and manage their emotions, which gives them increased awareness and sensitivity to the emotions of others.  

  1. Critical Thinking: They look at problems from all angles, question assumptions, and weigh various solutions before making a decision. 

  1. Decisiveness: They make informed choices based on data, advice from others, and an assessment of the broader organizational implications. They also take ownership of their decisions, even under pressure. 

  1. Communication: They listen well and explain complex ideas and strategies simply and effectively. 

  1. Adaptability: They handle change with flexibility and can overcome challenges at the individual and team levels. 

  1. Empowerment: They delegate and trust their teams to do great work. 

  1. Relationship Building: They focus on collaboration and respect when building relationships with team members, suppliers, and other stakeholders. 

I’ve seen these qualities grow in people who never thought of themselves as leaders until someone gave them the opportunity. Programs like EDGE, which is also part of the NIGP  Leadership Summit, have played a big part in developing emerging procurement leaders. Graduates of this program gain confidence and grow their analytical and communication skills. Not only does it build their skills, but the networks they form with peers who are at a similar stage in their career journey stick with them long after the program ends. 

Takeaways for Leaders: How to Build a Leadership Pipeline 

Here are some steps you can take to begin building a leadership pipeline, regardless of your budget. 

  1. Give people exposure before promotion. Invite people to meetings they wouldn’t normally attend or have them shadow someone at the next level of leadership. Let them see the bigger picture so they can start imagining themselves in that seat someday. 
  2. Let them lead something real. Don’t wait for a vacancy or a training budget to become available. Assign every team member a project and trust them to own it while providing needed guidance along the way. 
  3. Support your supervisors: People don’t automatically know how to lead just because they’ve earned a title. Help them find their footing and define what kind of leader they want to be. 
  4. Invest in soft skills: Procurement is technical, but leadership is personal. Communication, adaptability, and empathy are just as important as policy and process. 
  5. Celebrate when people move on: Recognize that this means you’ve done your job. You’ve made the profession stronger. 
  6. Keep learning: Leadership development doesn’t stop at the top. Stay curious, seek feedback, and keep growing. When your team sees you learning, they’ll do the same.  

Building a strong leadership pipeline starts with you. Give your team opportunities to lead and grow, no matter their official title. Remember that leadership development is really about building people, which will benefit your organization and the public procurement sector as a whole.