Making Leadership Development Last: Top Considerations for Your Leadership Development Program, Part I

At The Leadership Laboratory, we provide workshops and learning experiences to teams, leaders, and executives for organizations across the United States and around the globe. While a percentage of our partnerships are one-off collaborations for retreats or team meetings, we collaborate with a number of organizations as a part of formal leadership development programs. Whether programming for new leaders, high-potential leaders, or executive leadership development, there are a number of considerations we’ve found are most helpful to consider as you put together your program.

No matter the length or audience, one of the first questions asked when partnering with an organization is this: as a result of this program, what would you like this audience to do differently? What are the skills you’d like them to have, the behaviors you’d like to see, or the knowledge you’d like them to possess?

These questions, in essence, are referred to as backwards design theory. At The Leadership Laboratory, we start at the end. Once we know these goals, we can work backwards to design out a customized learning journey that helps to meet those specific objectives. As you think through the leadership development program you are looking to create, knowing the specific learning objectives and behaviors is the critical first step, as it will dictate the type of external partner you may choose to work with, and especially the type of content you select.

Knowing and determining your audience will be another step in designing the most impactful learning journey for leadership development. For leadership development programming, this is traditionally done with leaders across the organization; this separates programs geared towards teams and instead focuses on the organization as a whole. While we love working with teams at The Leadership Laboratory, there is something incredibly special about working with groups of leaders. In this setting, we can focus on creating a community of leaders where individuals can connect with fellow team members in completely different divisions. Leadership Development Programs can be a useful tool in enhancing departmental relationships, and creating stronger connections outside of traditional work-focused meetings.

When determining your audience, there are a number of potential considerations and terms to consider:

A new leader leadership development program is geared towards individuals who have made the transition from individual contributor to people leader. This is traditionally made up of recently promoted individuals, or individuals brought into the organization externally at the Manager or Senior Manager level. The intention of this programming is to provide education on a number of leadership development skill sets, such as coaching, feedback, engagement + motivation, and other behaviors that are associated with people leadership. New Leader programming is a fantastic opportunity for community building, and allows participants to expand their leadership community by meeting other individuals at a similar level who have recently made similar transitions into leadership.

An emerging leader leadership development program is geared towards individual contributors who will likely be tapped for a more formal leadership title in the coming years. These may be individuals who currently have an informal leadership responsibility, such as a project or team lead, who will still deeply benefit from the leadership development coursework as it pertains to these roles. Forward thinking organizations develop heavily in emerging leadership development, as they know that proactively providing this education around coaching, conflict navigation, feedback, and psychological safety will pay off major dividends as these individuals are promoted into people leadership, and begin to socialize these concepts to their peers and supervisors.

A high-potential leadership development program is comprised of individuals selected by the organization – perhaps self-nominated, or nominated by peers, program alumni, or executive leadership – who are seen as individuals who are on the rise within the organization. Often, this program is formally or informally associated with a succession plan; these may be individuals most likely to be tapped for senior level leadership positions down the line. The intention of this leadership development program is to provide world-class leadership development of strategic thinking and people management, and often focuses on larger organizational development coursework around design theory, change management, and culture.

An executive leadership development program is geared towards Vice Presidents, Senior Vice Presidents, and Chiefs, all of whom play a major role in the strategy of the organization. As these are generally among the most tenured individuals in leadership roles within an organization, this leadership education is crucial for the necessary reflection required to serve as effective leaders. Many of these individuals are used to running from meeting to meeting or task to task, and the intention of this programming is to provide the opportunity to make their leadership skills even sharper, to have protected time for individual and team reflection, and create the connections among other senior leaders that can serve as an effective catalyst to accomplish the larger strategic initiatives of the organization.

When designing the content, you must return to the backwards design theory questions asked in the very first phase. What would you like this audience to do differently as a result of this program? Oftentimes, there are a number of components that should be facilitated internally, especially as it relates to business and industry specific knowledge that would be best facilitated by internal subject matter experts.

When it comes to the leadership development programming, selecting an external partner that mirrors the culture of the organization helps tremendously when implementing the content into daily communication practices. At The Leadership Laboratory, we strive to serve as an extension of the learning / HR teams that we support – we work to understand the current and ideal future states of the culture, and integrate the language and vocabulary, industry trends, and organizational leadership philosophies into the programming that we provide. Having a clearer understanding of your team and organization’s culture serves as an incredible asset when locating a new learning partner for your leadership development program.