Why leadership development programs fail

McKinsey & Company are prolific reviewers in the area of training and learning and they wrote an interesting article in 2010 where they found that only 25% of managers surveyed felt training programs measurably improved business results. This was followed up in 2014 when they looked into ‘Why leadership-development programs fail’.

A 2012 study found that almost $14 billion is invested annually by US companies on leadership development. According to CLO Media it is the no. 1 category in corporate learning and development spending. Yet, McKinsey confirm “around 30% of US companies admit that they have failed to exploit their international business opportunities fully because they lack enough leaders with the right capabilities.”

The issue is clearly a sizeable one, with far reaching effects. It’s great that McKinsey have identified some of the most common mistakes made by businesses when it comes to successful leadership development – in my view though, they are light on the practical and ‘how to’ of solving the problem.

They suggest the problem of failing Leadership programs can be addressed by sidestepping four common mistakes:

1. Overlooking context

2. Decoupling reflection from real work

3. Underestimating mind-sets

4. Failing to measure results

I’d like to tackle each of these in turn.

Continue reading this post on TransferOfLearning.com

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Leadership is a key driver of performance – it’s an investment and should show returns the same as any other. Join me and industry experts Juliet Hammond and Suzanne Quentin in reviewing why leadership development has failed for so long, and what we can do about it. REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR.