Most organizations have something that resembles a leadership development program, ranging from workshops or online modules to a polished curriculum.
But what’s the typical outcome?
A manager or supervisor who has trouble inspiring others and instead barks orders or micromanages people takes a leadership course, then shows up the following week and still acts more like a boss than a leader. Nothing changes.
How often have you seen this unfold? When theory isn’t put into practice, folks keep doing what they were doing before they took the class or workshop.
In many cases, this isn't a people problem. It’s a program design problem.
The gap between leadership programs that look good and leadership programs that change behaviour is well documented. Research from Training Magazine’s 2023 Annual Leadership Development Survey and years of insight from the Harvard Business Review shows that high-performing organizations take a fundamentally different approach to leadership development programs.
While many companies will cut leadership development budgets to save money, the most effective organizations consistently invest in developing leadership skills. Routinely dedicating resources to leadership programs makes long-term outcomes possible.
That’s not all. They know how to design a leadership development program that will yield results and achieve long-term success.
The best leadership programs show return on investment (ROI) through more than training metrics. They are able to demonstrate enhanced leadership capacity, improved talent retention and strong succession plans.
In this first article of our two-part series about designing the right leadership development program, we’ll explore how to design a program that works.
Design Around the Skills Leaders Need Now
Many leadership programs are built around outdated assumptions about what leaders do. In the past, leaders were expected to stay in command of their workers, providing all the answers and acting with authority to drive the execution of tasks. Leadership development programs tended to focus on what forms to fill out, how to treat everyone equally by following procedures and how to complete the annual performance review.
Today, leaders are expected to have high emotional intelligence and empathy to build diverse, resilient teams and motivate them to achieve organizational goals.
According to the data from Training Magazine, the most successful organizations prioritize these skills in leadership development:
- Coaching and developing others have stayed the top priority for seven consecutive years.
- Communication skills are second, followed by team leadership in third place.
- Strategy development and alignment are in fourth place, followed by emotional intelligence in fifth place.
- Change leadership moved up the priority scale, from ninth to sixth place in 2023.
These priorities demonstrate the emphasis on influence-based leadership over the old-school, command-and-control style. To excel, modern leaders must build more nuanced skills than just being able to direct people. They have to have influence, adaptability and the ability to develop people.
Coaching Team Members
Consider that coaching team members is different than advising them. Instead of telling folks what to do, great leaders ask questions to help them find their own solutions. It’s a shift from being the authority to being curious to motivate others to work through challenges.
It’s possible to cultivate this top-rated leadership skill by learning to use a coaching framework. At Padraig, we teach leaders the techniques to use a COACH Approach (remembering there are times coaching works well and times when a COACH Approach is not recommended, such as when someone is learning a new skill or at the point of needing disciplinary action to address performance issues).
What’s interesting is that many leaders see themselves as problem-solvers and decision-makers who can step in and put out fires. They don’t see themselves as coaches.
This disconnect is one example of where most leadership programs fall short.
If you’re trying to figure out how to design a leadership program that works, it has to include coaching—the core capability forward-thinking organizations need. Leadership programs must explicitly help leaders move from giving advice to asking questions, sparking a practical shift in day-to-day leadership behaviour.
The goal is to change how leaders show up in conversations with their team members.
Include Character in the Conversation
With the focus on skills to add to leadership toolkits, character is often treated as a side note—if it’s even addressed.
The data from Training Magazine demonstrates this has changed among the most effective organizations in recent years. In 2020, only 18 percent of organizations had specific programs to focus on leadership character. By 2023, that doubled to 38 percent.
Research indicated another interesting shift: The character elements most prioritized now are openness and connectedness. These are characteristics that make sense when leaders are expected to build trust and psychological safety, create a sense of belonging and navigate complex situations with transparency.
When we’re exploring how to design a leadership program that works, it’s vital that organizations understand that you cannot teach character the same way you teach skills. If you run a workshop about integrity or deliver a learning module about empathy, not much changes.
Instead, developing character traits happens when leaders reflect, receive feedback from others and understand themselves better. This is where emotional intelligence frameworks become essential (at Padraig, we use assessment tools such as EQ-i and DiSC to help leaders understand themselves and others better).
These insights are particularly powerful during the early stage of leadership development, leading self. Before leaders can effectively lead others, they need to understand:
- how they show up under pressure.
- ways their behaviour affects others.
- where their blind spots are.
Without the foundation provided by character and self-awareness tools like EQ-i and DiSC, skills development only goes so far.
Build Programs for How Leaders Actually Learn
When you’re contemplating how to design a leadership development program, there are myriad new tools available for learning—things like AI platforms, virtual reality simulations and social learning apps.
While they’re arguably innovative and potentially engaging, the research data is clear: These options are among the least effective methods for developing leaders.
Instead, the most effective approaches are:
- Structured, on-the-job development
- Role-playing and practicing in groups
- Instructor-led learning
- Blended learning experiences
- Reinforcement after the training
- An immediate supervisor who helps you apply what you learned
These more grounded approaches work because leadership itself is inherently social and relational. Leadership isn’t developed in isolation or entirely through virtual, online learning. It is developed through interactions, practice and feedback over time, coupled with easy access to refreshers.
For learning to change behaviour and stick, leadership development has to be treated as a process, not a one-time event.
The theory must be put into real-life practice. This includes:
- Embedding the practice into real work with team members.
- Creating opportunities for feedback and reflection (at Padraig, we believe keeping a journal helps you become a better leader).
- Building reinforcement mechanisms, such as online learning libraries that review the content learned in person, follow-ups, peer groups and coaching.
The organizations that get this right in leadership development programs design an experience that mirrors the reality of leadership, with conversations, decisions and day-to-day interactions.
Tie Leadership Development to Performance
While some organizations treat leadership development as an extra opportunity, high-performing organizations make it a core expectation that is built into how the organization's culture is built and how leadership performance is measured.
Instead of leadership development being nice to have or a perk, it’s a key performance indicator (KPI).
When considering how to design a leadership development program that works well, effective programs include:
- stretch assignments to push leaders outside their comfort zones.
- self-assessments to build awareness and ownership.
- real, multi-perspective insight using 360-degree feedback.
At Padraig, we offer clients the Emotional Intelligence—360 (EQ360) or a Fully Customized 360 created to assess your organization’s leadership competencies.
Pro tip: Reviewing 360-degree feedback is often most effective when it’s NOT tied directly to compensation. When the stakes are developmental, folks will typically provide much more honest feedback and leaders are much more open to it.
Instead of making leadership development an annual checkbox (X and Y workshops attended) or quarterly discussion, make it a standing agenda item for one-to-one meetings and an essential element of performance reviews focused on outcomes and behaviours.
When leadership development is tied directly to performance conversations, leaders take it seriously and theory is incorporated into practice.
Consistently Invest in Leadership Development Programs
When organizations have to reduce budget spending, many will plan to reduce leadership development funding. Some companies just don’t see the value; they think professional development isn't worth a big allocation of funds.
Remember that research shows that when organizations invest in leadership development consistently, they see the best returns and outcomes. That’s not a coincidence!
Leadership development is not a short-term initiative; it’s a way to build long-term capability.
It’s not feasible to build a leadership culture in bursts, nor is it possible to get future leaders ready for succession plans. When leadership development funding is inconsistent, it’s also challenging to measure meaningful ROI.
Instead, follow the leading organizations and move the conversation away from training metrics like attendance, completion rates and satisfaction scores to business outcomes:
- Leadership capacity
- Talent retention
- Succession readiness
- Organizational agility
That’s where leadership development proves its value.
Where This Comes Together
The key takeaway for anyone exploring how to design a leadership program is that it isn’t about finding the right platform or the right workshop once a year.
What’s critical is to design a program around skills that leaders need in today's environment, include character, choose a learning design that works with how folks learn including opportunities for peer learning, classroom learning, on-the-job learning and self-paced learning around the behaviours your organization wants to promote. Then, hold leaders accountable for applying all of this learning to their own leadership development.
This is what actually changes behaviour over time.
To find out what this looks like in practice, read this edition of our blog written by a Padraig client about Designing a Leadership Development Program That Works: Lessons from the Inside. This walks through how Padraig helped Payworks scale a cohort-based program for over 87 leaders—and what made the learning stick.
Designing the right components for a leadership development program is only half the challenge. Making them work inside your organization is critical.
So, in the second part of this two-part series, we’ll explore how to structure a scalable leadership development journey, describe what cohort-based learning looks like in practice and explore how to measure impact beyond satisfaction surveys.
Coach's Questions
When you look at your current leadership development efforts, are you prioritizing the skills leaders need today — or skills that were relevant a few years ago? Does your program include character development, or is it focused mainly on skills? What else might be missing? How are you holding your leaders accountable for their own growth? Do they know that accountability is expected?
