Choosing Leadership Development Methods? Start With the Behavior.

Behavior Change Depends on More Than the Delivery Method

Organizations Focus on Delivery, But Few Start With a Diagnosis

HR’s most extensively used development approaches are: e-learning (29%), instructor-led training (28%), manager coaching (24%), and self-paced learning (22%). Three of the four are ways of delivering development. That makes sense: delivery is the most visible part of development, and doing it well takes real expertise and effort. The fourth, manager coaching, is a promising sign of reinforcement, since it helps leaders put new skills into practice on the job.

Far fewer start with the design work that comes first: understanding where leaders need to grow and what behavior needs to change. Only 13% of HR teams use assessment regularly to diagnose leaders’ strengths and development needs, even though assessment ranks among the development experiences leaders most want. That means many organizations are developing leaders without clear evidence of where their gaps actually are.  And the evidence you get depends on the assessment you use. Every assessment is a tool built for a particular job, so the key is matching the tool to what you need to know.

Without an upfront diagnosis, leaders are often left to connect the dots on their own, with little time to do it. Year after year, leaders say they don’t have time to focus on development. Their other top barriers point to the same gap: not knowing which tools to use or which areas to focus on, development feeling less valuable than required work, and resources that aren’t personalized to their needs. Several of these point to how development is designed and reinforced, not just how it is delivered

That raises hard questions for HR: Where are each leader’s biggest gaps? And what reinforces new skills on the job?

Delivery Method Isn’t the First Decision

The right method depends on the situation: a leader’s level, the skill being built, available time, and budget. Encouragingly, when development is high quality, results are consistent across approaches: leaders apply, on average, 71% of what they learn from developmental assignments, 71% from facilitated training, and 69% from self-directed content. No single method pulls ahead across the board, and HR reports improved leadership capabilities across nearly every approach organizations use extensively.

If high-quality development produces similar results across methods, then method isn’t the decision to lead with. The better question is what behavior needs to change, and how development needs to be designed and reinforced for that behavior to stick. Method still matters, but it’s a choice that follows from that answer.

That matches decades of behavior change research: lasting change comes from practice, feedback, reinforcement, and motivation, not from any single delivery method. In our data, the strongest predictors of whether leaders apply what they learn are the overall quality of the development program and an organizational culture that supports development.

Choosing the right method matters. But the better first question is what behavior needs to change and how development should be designed and reinforced to make it stick.

Build Every Experience Around the Same Behavior

What makes a blend work isn’t how many methods it includes. It’s whether every experience is built around the same behavior. The strongest blends intentionally connect each experience so it builds on the last.

Organizations seeing results do tend to use more than one approach: those reporting improved leadership capabilities are 2X more likely to use two or more development approaches than those that do not see improvement (52% vs. 27%). Among organizations seeing improvement with two or three approaches, the most common are instructor-led training (54%) and digital learning (49%), suggesting that structured and flexible development often go hand in hand.

Design and Reinforcement Set Organizations Apart

Getting the delivery right helps, and design and reinforcement make a big difference, too.  Organizations whose programs begin with a diagnosis of leaders’ strengths and development needs are 2.3X more likely to see improved leadership capabilities (83% vs. 37%). Afterward, practice, feedback, and senior leaders who model development help new skills stick.

That matters because behavior change is where development pays off. Organizations that report improved leadership capabilities are 1.6X more likely to be among the top 10% of financial performers in their industry. When development isn’t set up to change behavior, the cost shows up later: leaders aren’t ready when critical roles open, and development spending is hard to defend.

Choosing the right method matters. But the better first question is what behavior needs to change and how development should be designed and reinforced to make it stick.

Start with the behavior the business needs to change, not the delivery method. Then plan all three stages of development: design, delivery, and reinforcement. These stages describe the role an approach plays, not the approach itself. Assessment can diagnose needs or build self-awareness, and a stretch assignment can teach a new skill or reinforce one. The behavior you’re targeting decides which role each one plays. Each stage also addresses barriers leaders say keep them from focusing on development.

You don’t need to fix everything at once. Instead, find your weakest stage and focus your energy there. That’s often where a change will make the biggest difference.

Design: Know where each leader needs to grow.

Many leaders say they don’t know which growth areas to focus on.

Start by naming the behavior the business needs leaders to change. Then use assessment to see where each leader stands against it: which strengths to build on and which gaps matter most. Organizations whose programs begin with a diagnosis of leaders’ strengths and weaknesses are 2.5X more likely to report a strong leadership bench. 

The right assessment depends on what you need to know, weighed against the tool’s validity, the time it asks of leaders, and the investment. Perception-based tools, like360-degree feedback and self-assessments, build self-awareness by showing how leaders see themselves and how others experience them. Situational-judgment tests and research-based personality assessments measure capabilities and tendencies directly. Simulations go furthest, showing how leaders actually perform in realistic challenges rather than how they describe themselves. Combining tools gives a fuller picture. But assessment pays off only when insights turn into a development plan with clear next steps, so busy leaders spend their limited time where it matters most.

Organizations that report improved leadership capabilities are 1.6X more likely to be among the top 10% of financial performers in their industry. 

Leaders also say development resources aren’t personalized to their needs. Use what you learn from assessment to personalize each leader’s development. Organizations that do, rather than relying only on cohort programs, are 3.1X more likely to report a strong bench. Personalization also saves time, because leaders spend their limited development hours only on what matters most to them.

Deliver: Choose a mix that fits the behavior.

Not knowing which tools to use is leaders’ second-biggest barrier, just behind time.

The behavior you’re trying to change should drive the method, not the other way around. Different behaviors call for different kinds of development. For example:

• Building knowledge or a framework before using it: self-paced content first, then live, facilitated sessions to apply it together.
• Closing gaps that differ from leader to leader: learning content targeted to the needs assessment uncovered.
• Building skills through daily work, like delegating: on-the-job assignments with practice and manager feedback.
• Preparing for high-stakes moments, like a difficult conversation: realistic practice with feedback before trying the skill on the job.

Leaders’ preferences matter, too. Some prefer structure; others prefer to learn on their own.

Self-directed digital learning often gets dismissed as the “lighter” option, but organizations can’t afford to overlook it. It’s the most accessible and scalable development option most organizations have, and it fits around leaders’ schedules. On its own, though, it isn’t enough. Pairing digital learning with other approaches is associated with higher reported capability improvement, so use it to extend and build on other experiences, not replace them.

Reinforce: Make new behavior the norm.

For many leaders, development feels less valuable than required work, and some say their managers don’t support their development journey, or the company doesn’t value it.

New skills fade without a chance to use them. When leaders are encouraged to practice and get feedback from their managers, organizations are 3.4X more likely to report a strong bench and 2.2X more likely to rate their leader quality as high.

But practice doesn’t have to mean extra time. It can be as simple as rehearsing a skill before a real conversation, debriefing with a manager afterward, or taking on a stretch assignment tied to what was just learned. When practice happens as part of real work, development stops competing with it, and managers become active partners.

Senior leaders set the tone for everything else. Culture is one of the strongest predictors of whether leaders apply what they learn, and when senior leaders visibly model development, organizations are 4.2X more likely to report a strong bench and 3X more likely to rate leader quality as high. Modeling can look like executives sharing their own development goals, joining programs alongside other leaders, or asking for public feedback. It sends a clear signal that the company values development as part of the job, not a distraction from it.

Most conversations about leadership development start with the delivery method. The data points somewhere else: organizations that diagnose needs, personalize development, and reinforce it through practice and leaders who model it are the ones pulling ahead. That’s what gives organizations confidence that their leaders can execute the strategy.