Blog
Why Most Leadership Training Is Complete Rubbish (And What Actually Works)
Related Reading:
Here's something that'll ruffle feathers: 90% of leadership training programs are about as effective as a chocolate teapot. I've sat through more leadership workshops than I care to remember, watched countless executives nod along to the same recycled PowerPoint presentations, and seen organisations throw millions at consultants who promise to transform their culture overnight.
The uncomfortable truth? Most of it's theatre.
After eighteen years in the business development game across Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, I've witnessed the good, the bad, and the downright ridiculous when it comes to professional development. And mate, there's a lot of ridiculous out there.
The Cookie-Cutter Catastrophe
Walk into any corporate training room and you'll see the same tired formula playing out. Generic scenarios that nobody relates to. Role-playing exercises that make everyone cringe. Motivational speakers who've never managed a team telling you how to inspire people.
I remember sitting in a particularly painful session where they made us build towers out of marshmallows and spaghetti to "demonstrate leadership principles." The facilitator - who looked like he'd stepped straight out of a stock photo - kept banging on about "synergy" and "paradigm shifts" while we fumbled with sticky confectionery.
What a load of codswallop.
The problem isn't that leadership development is inherently flawed. It's that we've industrialised it. Turned it into a one-size-fits-all product that can be delivered to anyone, anywhere, regardless of their industry, challenges, or actual needs.
Real leadership development happens in the trenches. When you're dealing with difficult customers, managing conflicting priorities, or having those awkward conversations about performance. Not when you're sitting in a circle talking about your "communication style."
What Actually Moves the Needle
Here's what I've seen work consistently across different organisations:
Mentoring that matters. Pair experienced leaders with emerging ones. Not for six months of structured meetings, but for ongoing, informal guidance as situations arise. The best leadership lessons I learned came from watching my boss handle a crisis at 2 AM, not from a workshop about crisis management.
Action learning projects. Give people real problems to solve with real consequences. I've seen mid-level managers develop more leadership capability in three months of tackling actual business challenges than in years of traditional training programs.
Cross-functional exposure. Stop keeping people in their silos. The operations manager who spends time with sales learns things about customer pressure that no training manual can teach. The finance team member who shadows customer service develops empathy that transforms how they approach budget discussions.
But here's the kicker - none of this is scalable in the way HR departments want it to be. You can't put it in a neat package and roll it out to 500 people simultaneously. It requires investment, attention, and - shocking concept - actually caring about individual development rather than ticking compliance boxes.
The Authenticity Problem
Leadership training fails because it focuses on techniques instead of character. It teaches people what to say and do without addressing who they are and why they do it.
I once worked with a CEO who could recite every principle from his executive leadership program. He knew the theory of emotional intelligence backwards. Could facilitate conflict resolution sessions like a pro. But his own team avoided him because he was fundamentally dishonest about his motivations and inconsistent in his decision-making.
All the training in the world won't fix someone who lacks integrity or self-awareness. Yet most programs skip right over this foundational stuff to get to the "practical skills."
The executives I most respect - and the ones their teams would follow into battle - aren't necessarily the most technically skilled leaders. They're the ones who are genuine about their strengths and weaknesses, consistent in their values, and honest about what they don't know.
The Australian Context
We've got a particular challenge here in Australia with leadership development because we often import programs designed for American corporate culture. The rah-rah motivational style that works in Dallas doesn't translate well to Darlinghurst.
Australians are naturally skeptical of overly polished presentations and grand gestures. We value straight talk and practical outcomes. Yet we keep subjecting our people to training that feels foreign and disconnected from how we actually work together.
I've seen brilliant results when organisations embrace our cultural preference for informal mentoring, direct feedback, and collaborative problem-solving. Companies like Atlassian have built their leadership development around these principles rather than trying to force square pegs into round holes.
The banking sector, despite its challenges, has actually produced some excellent internal leadership programs that focus on ethical decision-making and authentic communication. These work because they address real issues in ways that resonate with Australian values.
The ROI Reality Check
Here's where I might lose some of you: measuring the return on investment for leadership development is nearly impossible in any meaningful way. The metrics most organisations use - satisfaction scores, completion rates, 360-degree feedback improvements - don't correlate with actual business outcomes.
I've seen people game these systems spectacularly. Charming their way through feedback processes while their departments hemorrhage talent. Acing the assessment modules while making terrible strategic decisions.
The real indicators of effective leadership development are things like employee retention, internal promotion rates, and crisis response capability. But these take years to manifest and are influenced by countless variables beyond training programs.
This doesn't mean we should abandon measurement - it means we need to be honest about what we can and can't quantify.
What I Got Wrong
For the first decade of my career, I was convinced that leadership was mostly about communication skills. Get people to express themselves clearly, listen actively, and provide constructive feedback, and everything else would fall into place.
I was spectacularly wrong.
The most effective leaders I know today might not be the best communicators in the traditional sense. But they're exceptional at creating conditions where others can do their best work. They understand systems thinking, can spot emerging trends, and make decisions with incomplete information.
These capabilities aren't taught in most leadership programs because they're harder to package into discrete modules. They develop through experience, reflection, and ongoing learning that happens outside formal training environments.
The Path Forward
If you're responsible for leadership development in your organisation, here's my unsolicited advice:
Start with the basics. Before anyone attends a leadership workshop, they should understand your business model, competitive environment, and key performance indicators. You can't lead effectively if you don't understand what you're leading toward.
Focus on decision-making over communication. Everyone talks about the importance of communication in leadership, but decision-making is where the rubber meets the road. Create opportunities for people to make progressively larger decisions with appropriate support and feedback.
Embrace failure as a learning tool. The best leaders I know have spectacular failure stories. They've made mistakes, learned from them, and developed resilience and judgment as a result. Yet most leadership programs are designed to minimise failure rather than leverage it for learning.
Build communities, not cohorts. The most valuable professional development happens through ongoing relationships with peers facing similar challenges. Create ways for leaders at similar levels to share experiences, problem-solve together, and support each other's growth.
Stop trying to develop leaders in isolation from the teams they'll actually lead. Leadership is a relationship, not a set of individual skills. Development programs that separate "high potentials" from everyone else create artificial dynamics that don't translate to real-world effectiveness.
Look, I'm not suggesting we abandon professional development altogether. But we need to get serious about what actually works versus what makes us feel like we're doing something important.
The organisations that get this right don't have the flashiest training programs or the most impressive guest speakers. They have cultures where people learn from each other continuously, where feedback flows naturally in all directions, and where leadership development is integrated into daily work rather than separated from it.
That's not as easy to sell as a three-day intensive workshop. But it's what actually produces leaders worth following.
And if you disagree with me, well, you might be part of the problem.
What's your experience with leadership development programs? Have you found approaches that actually work, or are you as frustrated as I am with the current state of the industry? The conversation needs to shift from what sounds good in theory to what delivers results in practice.