The intent in writing this article is to raise awareness of the problem with leadership training the way it exists now and to encourage people like you to be a part of the solution. Your managers need help. They need help delivering results and doing it in a way that people feel good about. If you stop reading right now and go to work on solving that, our work here has been successful.

The way most companies are training managers and supervisors isn’t working. The Harvard Business School recently published The State of Leadership Development Report. Take a look at these statistics their researchers uncovered:

• Seventy-five percent of organizations rate their leadership development programs as not very effective.

• Only 18 percent of organizations say their leaders are “very effective” at meeting business goals.

• A mere 19 percent of organizations say they are “very effective” at developing leaders at all levels.

Pretty startling, huh? It gets worse.

Imagine reading those reviews on a product that costs $400 billion dollars! That’s how much companies spend collectively on leadership training annually, according to Forbes.

This isn’t an indictment of any one particular company’s approach or any HR or L&D professional reading this article. It’s simply a suggestion that the industry needs to take a step back and acknowledge there’s a problem.

So, what’s going wrong? Here’s what the data says about what’s wrong with the current approach to leadership training in most organizations:

Disconnected From Business Outcomes

Your managers are paid to deliver results. And yet an audit of LinkedIn Learning’s leadership courses revealed 97 percent of the content never referenced business outcomes. How is that even possible? While managers need help learning how to do effective performance reviews, be a better coach, have hard conversations, and build trust, none of those things will matter if they can’t deliver organizational outcomes.

More Is Not More

Leadership training companies deserve a lot of the blame for the state of the industry. In trying to get L&D teams to pay large licensing fees for access to their content, they’ve decided to go with the “more is more” approach. We were a bit surprised to discover 947 courses on video gaming strategies in LinkedIn Learning’s manager training programs. Although the courses on acne removal and clown makeup caught us off guard too. We didn’t watch any, so we can’t comment much on their overall instructional design.

When 75 percent of people rate their leadership development training as ineffective, we can safely presume “more is not more.” Your managers don’t need access to more content, they need less.

Too Theoretical – Lack of Immediate Application

Managers don’t want two full days of content or three books to read. The way current training programs are structured doesn’t lead to retention or application. Multiple studies show the typical learner retains 10–20 percent of what they’re taught in a full-day class. They retain more than 80 percent of what’s shared in one hour. Our brains and bodies don’t like long meetings or classes. They’re inefficient.

Humans learn best with a blended approach, in cohorts rather than alone, with start and end dates, and with things they can apply immediately.

Lack of Accountability and Follow-Up

One of the four fundamental flaws with existing management training programs is a lack of built-in accountability and follow-up. All too often we’re onto the next class teaching a whole new set of behaviors or competencies when the manager forgets or neglects what was taught in the last one. When we say follow-up, we don’t mean an email a week or two after the course with some reminders. No, effective accountability and follow-up are facilitated discussions where managers share how they’ve been trying to lead differently and what obstacles they’re running into. Additional models or learning tied to the core competencies already taught are introduced, helping the learner improve their skills in that critical area.

It’s Time for a Change

Leadership is more than just a set of skills; it involves making critical decisions about when and how to apply those skills. Leaders often rely on a pattern of responses based on their past experiences. These can become habits that may not be effective in changing situations. This happens because unconscious encoding processes shape responses, especially under stress. Adapting behaviors requires conscious effort and openness, which can be challenging in the high-pressure environments many leaders face today.