The Future Of Leadership Development Is Personal

How to ensure development program dollars provide an optimized return

The market for leadership development programs is expected to hit over $80 billion in 2024. A worthwhile investment, surely, but one with a historically tricky return on investment. 

It’s estimated that only a quarter of professionals who engage in these programs sustain behavior change post-training. A lack of behavior change equals a lack of payoff for organizations.

Why the sparse follow-through in leadership development initiatives? There are likely many reasons, from the relative difficulty in measuring payoff with leadership development (in comparison to traditional skills training), to the generational shifts we’re seeing in workplace norms.

The more a program resembled training — with standardized curricula and immediately measurable outcomes — the less extraordinary the impact. Programs that instead focus on the whole person's learning and allow for individualized growth paths see the most staggering impact on their leaders. 

While both training and development are valuable, they serve different organizational goals; training injects efficiency and standardization. Development equips leaders to innovate and think differently. Both fill organizational gaps and require different messaging, approaches, and mindsets. 

Back to the question of ROI. How do we ensure our development program dollars provide an optimized return? In short, make participant journeys as personalized as feasible. 

The Case for Individualization

Adult learning theories have long toted the finding - we remember the things that affect us most. That may sound like a call to make sure development programs teach job-relevant skills. And to that, we would say — yes, but that’s table stakes. Go a step further. Create experiences that address unique desires, strengths, and shortcomings. 

Take the tale of two regional sales directors. One neglects relationship building beyond sales/finance and with peers across regions. While the other exhibits siloed thinking, prioritizing their group’s sales numbers over broader organizational goals. These two leaders do not need the same workshop on collaboration. They need highly specific, person-contextualized 1:1 support, tailored to their specific contexts and challenges.

Why? Once leaders reach a certain level in the organizational hierarchy, they often have an intellectual understanding of leadership. They are familiar with skills like collaboration, creating followership, and leading through change. They’ve either read the books or received the right advice. The disconnect is in helping them figure out why they haven’t applied it. Do they lack the knowledge, the comfort, or the motivation? 

A whole person's professional development focuses on identifying (and addressing) the cognitive and behavioral tendencies that get in their way. “Check the box” programs can miss this piece

Methods for Individualization

So, you’ve decided to send your high-potential leaders through a development program. How do you ensure they’re getting the most bang for your buck?

We recommend starting with a data-based deep dive into oneself. After all, it’s difficult to argue with your own data. Individual assessments come in many forms but there are some common practices: 
 

• 1:1 behavioral interviews with leadership coaches who can synthesize what they learn into actionable strengths and opportunities. Relatedly, a dedicated external coach over 6-9 months serves as a thought partner with no skin in the game — building rapport, guiding them through self-awareness processes, and providing a safe space to experiment with new behaviors. 
• 360 assessments, whether by survey or interview format, provide leaders a view into their reputation. It’s best practice to separate this process from standard performance reviews as we find that 360 observers give richer, more honest data when they know their perspective is for development purposes only.
• Psychological testing, as tired as some may seem, helps leaders articulate suspicions about themselves. There is nothing like seeing your leadership behaviors in black and white on a report to provoke your thinking and get those “a-ha” moments. 

Also, note, that it’s important to use vetted, industry-standard testing with trained facilitators as self-data is often delicate and should be handled with care. Personalized development planning is the natural outcome of these efforts and a good practice if one does not exist in your organization. A coach or mentor can help participants create SMART goals that leverage their personal strengths and drive progress.

Making it Scalable

You may be thinking, it’s great that our workforce is getting enriching experiences, but how do I justify the cost, time, and effort? 

There are several platforms and software that can make high-touch engagements a much easier lift, e.g., virtual coaching or mentoring. Certainly, an external partner or vendor will have the existing capability. If managing program components internally, we recommend looking for software that can both measure and automate output, e.g., 360 surveys that provide automated individual reports, or using existing HRIS or LMS that can streamline development plan building.

Also, note that individualized engagement does not mean discouraging group events. One of the best ways to create cross-functional relationships and knowledge sharing is through peer coaching groups, wherein a handful of program participants meet regularly to advise one another.

Self-led education is also a winning offering. For example, you might create online modules across a variety of topics and, through personal development planning, allow the leader to mix and match the topics that will be most relevant to their needs. Of course, there should be parameters around how they use those resources, i.e., requirements for several modules attended, verifying there are 1-2 takeaways from each module to implement, etc. 

Involving managers in the program also reinforces development through tailored on-the-job activities, application plans, and continuous coaching dialogues. This creates consistency in development messaging while leveraging relationships and structures that already exist. 

Lastly, let us end where we began, ensuring a return on your development investment. The gold standard in the field is measurable, outcome metrics. Although measurement with individualized programs is tricky, it has a tremendous organization-wide impact. Data consolidation and advanced analytics can reveal shared strengths, gaps, or derailer patterns at a group level. 

If you’ve incorporated some of the components above, you’ve likely got 360, psychological, and engagement data to farm. These data-driven insights can then inform decision-making and drive impactful outcomes.  We always advise executives to use this data in at least two ways:

First, let it inform succession planning. Based on development targets and engagement throughout a program, who are your ready-now and future successors for critical roles? What are the broad executive competencies that your high-potential players need continued coaching in? Even individualized programs can yield data with far-reaching impact.

Second, group-level data can help you identify larger cultural and operational gaps. We find that programs, when deployed for the middle management level, nearly always reveal pain points that were previously unknown to senior management. Organizations that invest in development use this data to improve programs year-over-year.

Although tailored programs require more rigor around deployment, data integration, and stakeholder engagement, organizations see worthwhile payoffs. While ROI may be challenging to quantify, the long-term benefits are invaluable for your organization’s growth and success. If the future of your talent pipeline relies on developing exemplary leaders, extraordinary, individualized development is the competitive advantage required to get there.

Jasmin Martinez, Ph.D., is a Leadership Consultant at Vantage Leadership Consulting.