Leadership development that lasts: five questions to ask before you start
Most organizations that look for leadership development in Lexington already know why. A promotion that came with no preparation. A team that keeps having the same argument. A manager who is good at the work and not yet at leading the people doing it. What is harder to know is which kind of development will still be making a difference six months later.
That question has better answers than it used to. A large review of leadership training, Lacerenza and colleagues in 2017, drew on 335 samples and found leadership training more effective than previously thought, on how people reacted to it, what they learned, whether it transferred to the job, and the results that followed. The same review found the effects were stronger when certain things were in place. Those make a useful set of questions to ask anyone offering leadership development, including us. These are patterns across many programs, not guarantees for any one.
Naming the Pattern
1. Does it start by finding out what is actually needed? The review found stronger effects on learning and on transfer to the job when training followed a needs analysis. In plain terms: before anyone teaches anything, someone looks at what this leader, or this team, actually needs. A program that arrives with the same agenda for everyone has skipped that step.
2. Is there practice, not just content? Programs that combined several methods, telling, showing and practicing, showed stronger effects than programs that relied on one, and programs built on practice showed stronger results. Hearing a good idea about feedback is not the same as giving feedback, getting it slightly wrong, and trying again. Ask how much of the time is spent doing the thing rather than hearing about it.
3. Is there feedback along the way? Programs that included feedback showed stronger transfer to the job. A leader trying something new needs to hear how it landed, from someone who saw it.
4. Is it spread out over time? Programs spread over several sessions showed stronger effects on the job and on results than a single session. A single day can start something. In our experience the real test of a new habit is the third busy week after the session, not the session itself.
5. Is there a person in it? Face-to-face programs showed stronger transfer than virtual ones, and programs led by an instructor showed stronger learning than ones people worked through alone. Self-paced material has a place. It works better alongside a person who knows the leader and the context than instead of one.
Expanded Perspective
There is a sixth question, and it is about the organization rather than the program. A second review, Blume and colleagues in 2010, looked at whether training carries over into the job. For open skills, the kind leadership is made of, where there is no single correct way to act, the trainee's motivation and a supportive work environment were more strongly related to whether training transferred than they were for narrower skills with one correct method. So the question for the organization is: when this leader comes back and tries something new, will the people around them make room for it?
That is the part no provider can deliver alone. Even a strong program can struggle in a team where trying something new reads as a risk.
What Steady Leaders Tend to Notice
None of these questions require expertise to ask. They are reasonable things to want from any development you pay for, whoever provides it. In our view, a provider who welcomes them is a better sign than any brochure.
For our part, that is why our engagements usually begin with an assessment, run over months rather than a single day, and every one has a coach in it.
Closing Reflection
Leadership development across Central Kentucky does not need to be complicated to last. It needs to start from what is actually needed, give people room to practice, tell them how it went, come back more than once, and have someone in it who knows them. Asking for those five things, and making room for the sixth, is most of the decision.