Why Leadership Development Is Shifting From One Off Training to Continuous Coaching

The current demand on leadership development is for the outcomes of that development to be sustainable. Many organizations continue to rely upon traditional methods for developing their new and senior leaders; namely a one-off training program. There is an emerging awareness of the limitations of this approach. While a single course may deliver knowledge, leadership requires consistent application of skills and behaviors over time. Consistent application of skills and behaviors is difficult to achieve from a series of disconnected sessions. 

There is another aspect to this shift; a larger shift in the way companies see management capabilities. With hybrid teams requiring guidance, employees experiencing change and needing support with wellbeing, and decision making in uncertain environments, there are an increasing number of demands placed on today's leaders. These demands require continued development, therefore the development process will follow suit.

Why does one-off leadership training have limitations?

While traditional leadership training continues to have value (it can develop frameworks, create a shared vocabulary, and provide a foundation for expectations) its greatest limitation is the lack of transfer. Coaching and mentoring are most successful when used within a broader organizational learning and development strategy. As such, using either coaching or mentoring as standalone activities for leadership development creates barriers to success. This is because leadership is not a technical skill acquired during one instance of instruction and then applied unchangingly. Rather, leadership is developed through repeated applications of behavior, within various contexts, with opportunities for review and refinement.

Organizations are increasingly turning to leadership coaching as a means to extend the effectiveness of leadership training. The logic behind this approach is simple. Coaching provides a continuing stream of opportunity for learning and application of the concepts presented during formal training. In addition, coaching provides an organized structure for testing decisions, reflecting on actions, and adjusting the manner in which one leads.

This approach aligns with growing content from business publishers. Leadership stress, productivity pressures, and management overwhelm are no longer peripheral concerns. Instead, they occupy center stage in terms of business performance.

When the goals of the organization are aligned with the natural rhythm of the workplace, and not disrupted by being pulled away for isolated events, leadership development becomes more effective. Coaching supports this by linking the development needs of the manager directly to the live challenges he/she faces. For example, while working through team conflict, delegation issues, stakeholder communications issues, or role transitions, a manager can receive coaching related to these issues at the same time they are occurring, not after several months in hindsight.

Scale matters, not just quality

Finally, while quality is important, scale also plays a significant part in determining why organizations historically relied upon short term training programs. Short-term training programs were simpler to administer to large numbers of participants versus providing individualized development experiences. Technology has changed this dynamic. Scale is no longer limited to class-based approaches.

Historically, organizations tend to invest significantly in senior executives and much less predictably in lower-level managers. However, many of the daily operating performance measures are dependent on line managers. Line managers affect employee perceptions of quality of communication, quality of workload assignments, frequency and timeliness of feedback provided to employees, and ultimately whether employees choose to remain with the organization. Therefore, the ability to engage a greater proportion of this group through a continuous coaching model is very appealing since all developmental needs do not need to fit into the same train-the-trainer format.