Why Leadership and Development Programs Fail, Part 1

It’s a sad but true fact that the majority of well-meaning leadership development and training programs fail, or at least fall short of expectations. As I coach and consult with C-Suite leaders, this ranks amongst the biggest disappointments that they routinely relate to me.

There are many reasons why these well-meaning programs fall short of outcomes that could be considered successful. Among these many reasons, one reason that certainly cannot be cited as a justification for failure is a lack of spending. In 2015 alone, companies spent $160bn in the United States on employee training and education and more than $365bn globally. Unfortunately, committing these valuable resources often didn’t produce better organizational performance.

Many participants simply reverted to their old ways of doing things soon after participating in what were often highly-structured and well-meaning leadership development programs.

In my experience, there are three primary reasons that these important initiatives fail to produce the desired results.

1. Failure to be specifically focused.
2. Failure to relate proven theory to real-world experiences.
3. Failure to measure results adequately.

By far, the most important of these three failures to avoid is making sure that the program you choose is specifically focused enough to produce the desired results.

The most important thing that corporate leadership can do when considering a new leadership initiative is ask themselves “What’s the explicit purpose of this program and what new leadership capabilities are needed?”

Once the leadership team can answer that question with conviction, a development program with appropriate scope and proper impact is far more likely. Focusing on scope means developing a program with a small number – no more than two or three competencies that will make a meaningful difference to corporate performance.

In my experience, I often see companies that list a substantial number of leadership standards and individual competencies that they wish their leaders to develop. When companies attempt to offer training and development programs that focus on such a wide array of different competencies, they put their employees in an untenable position.

I’ve seen companies have great success by simply identifying a small number of leadership capabilities that they think are essential to their strategic goals and then repeatedly focusing on them throughout the organization.

In part 2 of this three-part examination of why leadership programs fail, we’ll be focusing on how to structure programs that relate leadership theory to real-world work that leaders must do in the organization and how to set up programs to measure the impact that the development program produces over time.

In the meantime, start thinking about what leadership skills would really move the needle in your organization and see if you can narrow this longer list down to two or three leadership competencies that your team needs most.