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Best practices and trends for developing the next generation of talent.

Career and Leadership Development

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Get a monthly dose of the latest leadership development content, tools and templates, best practices, events, and more.

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Leadership and Management Newsletter

Prepare top performers at all levels in your organization to take on management responsibilities through high-impact leadership development programs.


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Creating Leadership Development Programs: ElaineBiech

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Four Things That You Should NOT Use the MBTI Assessment For

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Lead From Anywhere

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Going through the MBTI process can be invaluable, but here are four things that you should never use the MBTI assessment for.

November 2024 - TD Magazine

Limit Leadership Leaps

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 OutcomesYour 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 MoreLeadership 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 ApplicationManagers 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-UpOne 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 ChangeLeadership 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.

The Leadership Training Industry Is Broken

October 2024 - TD Magazine

Leadership Development With a Limited Budget

Billions of dollars are spent on leadership development, and yet, our leaders are not ready for today’s challenges. Research increasingly shows that most programs are failing.Read our whitepaper to explore the research and how to fix your leadership program. Leadership Development for Long-Term ChangeWhat makes a leader? Psychologist and leadership expert Daniel Goleman has researched this for decades. His answer is emotional intelligence. The need for it is greater than ever in today's complex global world. Linear thinking and command and control were successful after the industrial revolution, but people now expect fluid leadership styles along with synergistic intuition.And these things can’t be taught. They have to be experienced, because to develop these traits, we need to tap into the limbic system. This area of the brain that deals with feelings, impulses, and desires is essentially the connection to emotional intelligence.As Goleman mentions in his HBR article “What Makes a Leader,” the “limbic system learns best through motivation, extended practice, and feedback.”Despite this, most leadership programs try to teach in ways that appeal to the prefrontal cortex, or in other words, the logical part of the brain. This makes little difference to leaders because we need to target the emotional brain, which requires a different approach. Successful leadership development programs need the following:Stories – By being exposed to international projects and assignments as well as various coaches, mentors, and stakeholders, leaders don’t just listen to different viewpoints. They also question their own mental models to start fine-tuning their leadership identities.Learning challenges – Without facing tough experiences in life, we never learn. So, we all need challenging projects and even so-called difficult people to grow. Making sense of it all – As we touched on in our blog on the comfort food of learning, vertical development allows leaders to change. Book clubs and group coaching are great examples because they provide multiple ideas whilst giving leaders the confidence to try things out in their day-to-day. Who Ate Our Culture?Management and leadership guru Peter Drucker famously said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” But who or what eats culture?We are our environments and vice versa. As such, we need both a learning culture and a safe environment that encourages individuals to challenge their biases and to come together for a common goal.However, most organizations promote individuals and support hierarchical career development rather than focusing on teams. As a result, self-interest takes over and your culture is devoured by the needs of a few elite individuals.As this paper on leadership development further explains, not only do most leadership development programs neglect the team, but they also often ignore politics.No one wants politics, but if we don’t talk about the issues and dangers, how can we hope to make leaders aware of the delicate balance between self-interest and the common good?To nurture the best culture for your organization, ensure:Cohort learning – As previously explained in “How to Stop Failing at Leadership Development,” learning should involve the community. Groups that co-learn, for example, book clubs, develop a common language and way of behaving that inspires them to support each other.Inclusivity – Everyone can be a leader within their remit. In fact, the more people you develop, including low performers, the more you transform your culture and reduce politics.Measurability – Development programs are increasingly being measured with, for instance, the Kirkpatrick model. The Dupont Bradley Curve also gives you a useful framework to check in on culture. Make Your Transition to Modern Leadership DevelopmentDeveloping leaders, or any adult, is hard because it means we have to appeal to the emotional part of the brain. The one that’s wrapped in mystery and instinct.Nevertheless, book clubs are a powerful way to open up that mystery. They leverage the wisdom of groups and stories such that people can self-reflect and practice in-situ.Furthermore, a book club or group coaching session promotes social connectivity and co-responsibility that encourage people to grow into new perspectives and ways of being. As a result, you rewire some neural networks and you set the stage for long-term change.Don’t miss our whitepaper for all the details. 

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