Why leadership development programs fail
Organisations rely on their leaders to be the vanguards of change and growth in an increasingly fast-paced and disruptive business environment. They expect top teams to lead the charge and set the pace to maintain a competitive advantage. And they’re willing to place some big bets on their leadership. Globally, organisations spend $50 billion dollars every year to build leadership bench strength through learning and development. Yet, in many cases, there’s little pay back. Learning and development doesn’t always lead to better organisational performance, because people typically revert to their default behaviours.
We call it “the wheels coming off” leadership development – because in many ways, that’s exactly what is happening.
Think of it like a Formula 1 pit stop.
To stay in the race, the pit stop crew needs to ensure that the four wheels of the car are replaced at speed—and simultaneously—before the vehicle screams back out into the race. If the car attempts to re-join the race with a missing wheel, it’s likely to be a spectacularly expensive failure.
Yet, in many of the leadership development strategies we’ve encountered over the years, one or more of the metaphorical wheels is missing before the strategy is implemented.
It’s little surprise when the leadership development gains no traction.
In other words, before you set your leadership development initiative into motion we recommend you need to ensure that the following four ‘wheels’ are firmly fixed:
1. Meaning – is the organisational context being taken into account?
In leadership development, one size doesn’t fit all. In fact, one of the first questions to ask when designing a leadership development initiative is, “How, precisely, does this leadership program enable our strategy or organisational culture?” and “What are the 3 or 4 behaviours or competencies that will make the biggest difference?” These are crucial questions because we’ve seen that leaders – especially when under pressure – tend not to engage with capability development unless they understand its relevance. The relationship between meaning and engagement is well illustrated in the story of President Kennedy’s first visit to the NASA space centre in 1962. During the visit, he noticed a man carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said, “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?” “Well, Mr. President,” the janitor responded, “I’m helping to put a man on the moon.” When leaders can see that their participation in a developmental program is helping them put their equivalent of a ‘man on the moon’, we’ve seen that you not only get buy-in from those leaders at a rational level but, crucially, at an emotional level too—the vital trigger for behavioural change.
That leads to the second point:
2. Mindset – are underlying beliefs, values and judgments being addressed?
Mahatma Gandhi once famously said, “Be the change you want to see in this world.” When senior leaders believe this idea applies to their teams, but not to them, there’s a serious risk of the wheels coming off the entire leadership development initiative.
Take the CEO who asked us to work with his team specifically to build trust and openness. At the end of our first meeting, I offered to share with his executive team my article on trust that had just been published by the Australian Financial Review. “No” he asserted. “I will need to read it first to make sure it’s OK—only then will I send it out to my team.”
And there it was. The source of the trust issues!
The mindset of the leader is a powerful thing. Essentially, the weather in their mind sets the climate of the day for their team. They know that the culture of the business is shaped by them and they are responsible for the team’s activity and capability. So, when things aren’t working they know they are probably one of the root causes. In the case of the CEO, he agreed to “look in the mirror” through a 360-degree performance assessment and through the process of executive coaching. The coaching coupled with team workshops resulted in a significant lift in engagement scores of the team.
3. Measures – are internal systems working for and not against the initiative?
Often we’re asked to work with teams to help build collaboration across functional and organisational lines: to ‘de-silo the business’. And when we ask about the remuneration policy, we discover reward is focused on individual business unit hitting their own targets. Unless there is alignment between the objectives of the leadership development program and internal systems and the goals, the program is doomed to failure before it even starts.
‘Measures’ also refers to measuring the outcomes and impacts of the leadership development initiative because, as stated so eloquently by leadership guru Peter Drucker “What gets measured gets managed”.
But ensure that the right outcomes are being measured. Immediate evaluations are good to ensure hygiene factors are being catered for. But what counts is long-term behaviour change; it’s important, for example, to undertake longitudinal evaluations to measure change 3, 6 and 12 months after the development initiative. This is where the rubber hits the road.
4. Momentum – are there mechanisms in place for sustained behavioural change?
A leadership development initiative that is an ‘event’ might provide an immediate boost in excitement and engagement—but it’s fleeting. The half-life of learnings from one-off development programs is about 3 months. And then participants are doing well if they can recall one or two key ideas. For a real return on investment there need to be conscious mechanisms in place that embed and sustain learnings. Effective measurement is one thing but alone will not create the basis for sustained change. Genuine interest and role modelling by senior leaders in their people’s development are critical to create momentum. One client we worked with required every participant in its leadership development program to be sponsored by a member of the executive leadership team. The sponsor met with the participant ahead of the program to discuss both parties’ expectations and then at the conclusion of the program to explore how the participant was going to put learnings into practice and what support they needed to assist them in their endeavours from their sponsor.
In this regard, technology is becoming a real game-changer.
Recently we’ve introduced into our coaching practice a digital management platform that makes it easier to track coaching activity as well as measure real-time behaviour change, accountabilities and return on investment.
Just like an F1 racer, leadership development initiatives require technical expertise, a strategic approach and major investment. However, an F1 driver doesn’t stand a chance unless they exit the pit stop with all 4 wheels working together. Similarly, for leadership development initiatives to gain traction, and help organisations to keep up with the pace of change, all 4 ‘wheels’ – Meaning, Mindset, Measures and Momentum – must also be working together.
And like a successful pit stop, in the end it’s all about a deliberate plan executed brilliantly well.
Kind Regards,
Mehul Joshi & Joe Fischer
Mehul Joshi is a Partner with the Stephenson Mansell Group, a former award-winning broadcast journalist for the BBC, and an experienced executive. As a leadership consultant and executive coach, he has implemented successful interventions for some of the world’s biggest companies in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Joe Fischer is an Equity Partner and Executive Director with the Stephenson Mansell Group, an experienced international corporate executive, company director and executive coach. He has also run his own HR consultancy and held senior executive positions with Nestle and the P&O Group working in Australia, Switzerland, the UK, Asia, and the Middle East.
