In our last blog, we explored how to create a leadership development program that works. Now, in the second part of this two-part series, we’re looking at how to run a leadership program that keeps getting buy-in.
So often, organizations launch an incredible new program that just fizzles out.
The pattern is often the same: There’s a strong kickoff, with senior leaders in attendance and a room of energized participants. The curriculum is thoughtful and well-designed.
But then, six months after launch, things slowly stop.
Sometimes, budgets shifted to other priorities or managers got busy. For whatever reason, attendance dropped. No one can articulate what’s been working, let alone provide data for the ROI.
Sound familiar?
The issue isn’t usually a design problem, however. It’s an execution problem.
You can have the best content for a leadership program, but the real challenge is in sustaining momentum, proving value and keeping it funded beyond the first year.
While the Harvard Business Review builds the case that leadership training can generate a huge return for midsize companies (not just huge multi-national organizations), there’s sometimes a gap between concept and delivery.
- According to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends research, 74 percent of leaders say learning is critical — yet only 46 percent feel ready to deliver it. That’s a 28-point gap.
- After PwC interviewed 1,322 CEOs from across 77 countries for its Annual Global CEO Survey, the resulting research identified that 73 percent of CEOs see skill gaps as a direct threat to growth of the organization.
In the competition to recruit and retain top talent, the organizations that invest in their team members — and sustain that investment — succeed.
Here’s how to do that in five steps.
1. Start With a Strong Vision
The most common mistake is jumping straight to course selection. (What courses should we offer?)
Most leadership development programs will not survive the scrutiny of the first budget review unless there is a clear vision.
A strong vision answers three questions:
- WHY are we doing this?
- WHAT will success look like in three years?
- WHAT are we not willing to compromise on?
The answers to these questions are practical, not philosophical. When a new VP joins the organization and starts asking questions about the budget allocation for the leadership development program, a clear and compelling vision is what will protect it.
Pro tip: To help articulate the WHY and the WHAT thoroughly, use these additional questions as a starting point (you may well come up with more).
If this program is wildly successful:
- What kind of stories will we hear internally — and from whom?
- What business problems will no longer exist?
- Who will be better leaders — and how?
Be explicit about the scope of the leadership development program and for whom it is designed. Are you developing:
- emerging leaders (leading self),
- mid-level managers (leading others), or
- senior leaders (leading the organization)?
Programs lose momentum when they try to serve everyone equally. Remember, you can start with one demographic, get it right, then expand to another demographic with different content tailored to that level of leadership.
2. Diagnose Before You Prescribe
Many leadership development programs are built on assumptions or learning trends, not evidence. What does that look like? Human resources or management picking a framework or delivery model they like, building training around it and calling it strategy.
Creating a leadership development program without a real needs assessment is like a doctor writing a prescription without reviewing symptoms, assessing what’s wrong and making a diagnosis.
A meaningful needs assessment draws feedback from multiple levels, each of which has a different priority or focus based on their experience in the workplace. For example:
- Interview senior leaders about strategic priorities and succession risks.
- Talk to senior leaders about the organization’s current culture and the culture to which you aspire. You can include that in succession discussions by asking, “Why, specifically, is this person a star? What do they do and how do they do it that sets them apart?”
- Hold focus groups with managers to learn about their day-to-day leadership challenges.
- Seek employee feedback to get a sense of engagement, trust and communication gaps.
- Review performance data to gauge where leadership is helping or hindering results.
Note that these perspectives rarely align perfectly, and that’s okay because real life isn’t tidy.
So, for example:
- Executive leaders might think the main issue is strategic thinking.
- Frontline managers might list having productive performance conversations as their top priority for learning.
- Employees might express concern about toxic management styles like micromanaging and undermining psychological safety.
Each different perspective matters — but they require different solutions.
The goal here is to collect data that can be used to inform leadership development program design.
- What capabilities are most critical?
- Where are the biggest gaps?
- What should NOT be a priority right now?
If we’re thinking about how to run a leadership development program that gains traction, it’s vital that folks recognize their own challenges reflected in the training.
Pro tip: Using assessment tools such as EQ-i and DiSC can be an important part of the program infrastructure and needs diagnosis.
3. Get Executive Buy-In — Not Just Sponsorship
This is another step where many leadership development programs falter and fail.
Getting executive sponsorship (like a name on a memo or an executive sending an enthusiastic email to everyone) is easy. Getting executive buy-in (ongoing, visible engagement and showing their day-to-day commitment and support to others) is rare.
Without executive buy-in, programs become less of a priority or even expendable the moment budgets tighten or there’s a shift in priorities.
As Payworks discovered when scaling their leadership development program, making the business case by addressing issues that executives care about is critical. These might include things such as:
- The benefits of a robust succession plan.
- Attracting and retaining top talent.
- Improving competitive advantage (for example, speed of decision-making) through leadership.
- The cost of leadership vacuums (when there is a problem but no clear, authorized or effective leadership to solve it, resulting in confusion and low morale; this arises when a leader leaves, there’s a crisis or there is poor communication or ineffective leadership).
Then, keep the conversation going. Have an alignment conversation, asking executives:
- What does success look like to you?
- Where do you currently see leadership (at this level or that level of the organization) falling short?
- What outcome would make this leadership development program indispensable?
Listen to their feedback and make notes. The alignment conversation is helpful in two ways:
- It creates a sense of executive ownership.
- It defines your future management strategy.
It can also be helpful to position executives as coaches in the program, where they use a COACH Approach to encourage folks to find their own answers by being curious. The manager role becomes one of reinforcement.
Pro tip: For programs that Padraig designs and delivers for clients, we have built-in, automated tools to engage not only each participant but also to engage their leader. We have found that when the participant’s leader is engaged and provided with tools to support the participant in applying what they have learned, as soon as participants return to the office or shop floor, the ROI skyrockets.
4. Clarify Roles Before You Launch
Here’s what nobody tells you about running a leadership development program: Unclear accountability is a major threat to program success.
Without well-defined roles, decisions get delayed, expectations are mishandled (or missed) and the program loses momentum. This also requires the ability to turn difficult conversations into essential conversations when folks in certain roles aren’t meeting their responsibilities.
At minimum, you need clarity across these roles:
Learning Program Manager
Owns execution, timelines, communication and overall coordination.
Learning Advisory Council
Represents major departments, provides input and helps prioritize decisions.
(CAUTION: Use intentionally. While having a learning advisory council is valuable to establish shared ownership and give major departments a voice, it does add complexity with another layer to manage.)
HR / L&D Partners
Align the program with talent strategy and integrate it into broader systems.
External Vendors
Deliver content or expertise — but should not own strategy.
Leaders of the Participants (the most important role)
Reinforce the value of the program, create space for participation and ensure folks can apply learning on the job. Treat leaders of participants as co-owners, not bystanders. If they aren’t briefed and well supported so that they buy-in, the success of the program will suffer.
Most programs break down when managers are not brought on board, and yet so many leadership development programs focus only on the participant, not on their leaders. Remember, the manager or leader of the participant controls:
- whether participants can attend (uninterrupted),
- whether learning is reinforced, and
- whether behaviour actually changes.
If managers aren’t prepared, supported and held accountable, the program will likely struggle and almost certainly fail to achieve its greatest impact.
5. Build a Measurement Plan Before You Launch
Most programs measure too late — and too little. Typically, they’ll track attendance and maybe participant satisfaction or completion rates.
None of those metrics prove impact.
If you want a leadership development program to keep getting buy-in and survive, you have to be able to measure what the organization values, not what’s easy to measure.
Remember, we discussed in the third step that the measurement plan should come directly from executive-defined success.
So, for example, if the executives said:
- Success means stronger succession pipelines → measure internal promotions.
- Success means better retention rates → track turnover among top performers.
- Success means improved execution → review business performance indicators.
There are several ways to measure impact. Here are some to consider:
Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation
Measures impact through four stages: reaction (learner satisfaction), learning (knowledge gain), behaviour (application at work) and results (business impact).
Mastery Evaluation Methods
Focus on ensuring learners demonstrate true competence or skill proficiency — rather than just knowledge recall — before moving to the next topic. Google AI provides a good summary of the methods here.
Return on Expectations (ROE)
The learning and development metric that evaluates how well a program met the goals identified by key stakeholders. ROE focuses on outcomes like improved performance, employee engagement or cultural change.
Return on Investment (ROI) Methodology
Measures the financial value gained from programs by comparing monetary benefits to total costs. Typically, it calculates whether financial returns (for example, increased sales or faster onboarding) exceed the cost to develop and implement the program. Some organizations use the Phillip’s ROI Model, which is essentially Kirkpatrick’s model plus financial return.
Success Case Model (SCM)
A qualitative evaluation approach developed by Robert Brinkerhoff in 2003. The SCM analyzes the most successful and least successful participants to quickly determine how well a new program is working and why.
Don’t get lost in methodology. What’s most important is knowing what you’re trying to prove before you start. It’s hard to prove it after. Do your best to measure the outcome before you start the program so you have something to compare to when you measure during and after the program.
Then, close with the step that many folks forget: Actively communicate what’s working, what’s changing, what results you’re seeing and what’s next.
Don’t be afraid to share what you’ll do differently next time because this demonstrates that the program is evolving, responsive and worthy of continued investment.
Use multiple channels to share this message, from announcements made by executives or articles in internal newsletters to updates at team meetings and organizing celebrations for program milestones.
When you communicate the results, it keeps stakeholders engaged and ensures executives know the program is getting better, not just continuing.
Treat This as a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Designing a leadership development program is a project, but running one requires stamina and ongoing discipline.
Organizations that get it right have clarity of purpose, a solid foundation, executive alignment, continuous measurement and a visible, demonstrable evolution.
When you know how to run a leadership development program well, you build better leaders and a sustained competitive advantage.
Coach’s Questions
How would your most senior executives describe the vision behind your leadership development program? Would your description align with theirs? Who is the real champion of your program — and what happens to it if they leave? Are your managers actively reinforcing learning, or are they (perhaps inadvertently) pulling in the other direction? When was the last time you communicated the impact of your leadership development program to the people who fund it? How did your update land with them?
