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And it’s one of the most expensive sentences senior leaders keep repeating.

In more than 15 years of facilitating talent management and succession planning conversations, it’s a phrase I hear again and again – in boardrooms, ExCo meetings, and senior leadership teams.

A role comes up. A name is suggested.

“They’d be ready in two years.”

Heads nod. The line lands safely. The meeting moves on.

But almost no one asks the next key question.

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Two years doing what, exactly?

Not:

• “We believe in them”
• “They’ve got potential”
• “They just need a bit more time”

But what will actually change in those two years?

Specifically:

• Which enterprise-level decisions will they be exposed to?
• Which risks will they be allowed to carry before the title?
• Which senior leaders are expected to sponsor, stretch, and back them – publicly?

And the uncomfortable one:

Who is accountable if, in two years’ time, they are still ‘nearly ready’?

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This isn’t just about successors. It’s about senior leaders.

Because “would be ready in two years” often masks something else:

Senior leaders are:

• too busy to slow down and develop others properly
• reluctant to share influence before it’s forced
• unconsciously protecting their own position or relevance

So development becomes informal. Stretch stays optional. Accountability disappears.

No one owns the two years.

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When reality arrives earlier than planned

Then something shifts.

The role opens sooner than expected. The business moves faster than forecast. The risk profile changes.

And suddenly:

• “We don’t have anyone ready.”
• “We need to go external.”

What follows is familiar:

• recruitment fees
• long onboarding curves
• trust and credibility resetting with clients who have lost their “person”
• internal leaders quietly recalibrating their commitment

Performance doesn’t spike. It stalls.

“And the organisation pays twice: once for hiring and again for disengaging the people it said it was developing.”

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The real cost no one puts on the slide

The biggest cost isn’t financial.

It’s this:

• senior leaders are not developed to be talent builders
• succession plans lose credibility
• high-potential leaders stop believing the organisation will back them

People don’t leave because they weren’t promoted fast enough. They leave when they realise no one is truly invested in making them ready.

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The question Boards and SLTs need to ask differently

Not:

“Who’s on the succession plan?”

But:

“Which senior leader owns the next two years – and how are we holding them accountable for developing future leaders?”

Because readiness doesn’t come from time passing. It comes from deliberate exposure, challenge, and sponsorship.

And that only happens when senior leaders are developed as developers – not just operators.

This is exactly the gap our Leadership Catalyst Programme is designed to address: partnering with senior leaders to build future-ready leaders and successors before the organisation is forced to act.

If this article made you uncomfortable – or made you think of someone labelled “almost ready” – that’s usually the signal worth paying attention to.