The Problem With Leadership Development Is What Happens on Wednesday

By Adam Finch | That Training Guy

Picture the scene.

It's Tuesday afternoon.

You've just finished a brilliant leadership development workshop.

The facilitator was engaging. The conversations were great. There were a few laughs, some uncomfortable moments and probably at least one person who had a genuine lightbulb moment.

Everyone's leaving with their workbook, a head full of ideas and a renewed determination to be a better leader.

Someone even says:

"That was probably the best training course I've ever been on."

Lovely.

Job done.

Except it isn't.

Because tomorrow is Wednesday.

And Wednesday doesn't give a shit about your development plan.

Then Wednesday happens

You get into work.

You've got 47 unread emails.

Someone's off sick.

There's a problem with a customer.

Your manager wants an update on something you didn't even know you were responsible for.

And the meeting that was supposed to last fifteen minutes has somehow eaten your entire morning.

Remember that brilliant conversation you had yesterday about giving your team more ownership?

Well, you've got a deadline.

So instead of asking someone how they'd approach the problem, you tell them what to do.

It's quicker.

Remember the commitment you made to spend more time coaching your team?

You'll do that next week.

Remember that leadership behaviour you said you were going to practise?

It's somewhere in your workbook.

Which is now underneath a pile of paperwork.

And just like that, Tuesday's inspiration has been swallowed by Wednesday's reality.

Sound familiar?

I think this is one of the biggest challenges we face in leadership development.

We're often brilliant at creating the learning experience. We're not always quite as good at helping people do something with it afterwards.

A brilliant workshop doesn't automatically create a better leader

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I love leadership development.

I've spent a significant part of my career designing, delivering and improving leadership programmes.

And I genuinely believe a great workshop can make a massive difference.

It can challenge someone's thinking.

Build their confidence.

Introduce new skills.

Help them understand themselves and the people around them.

And sometimes it can completely change how someone sees their role.

That's powerful stuff.

But here's the thing.

Understanding something isn't the same as being able to do it.

You can spend a day learning how to give feedback.

You can practise it with someone sitting next to you.

You can leave feeling confident that you've cracked it.

Then two weeks later, you're sitting opposite someone who's not performing, they're getting defensive, and you've suddenly forgotten every bloody thing you learned.

Because knowing how to have a conversation in a training room and actually having that conversation when something matters are two very different things.

One is learning.

The other is leadership.

And we need to get much better at connecting the two.

We've become obsessed with the event

I think part of the problem is how we sometimes measure success.

We organise the programme.

We get everyone booked on.

We deliver the sessions.

We collect the feedback.

And then we celebrate.

Ninety-eight per cent satisfaction.

Brilliant facilitator scores.

Everyone loved the lunch.

Fantastic.

But here's a question.

What are people actually doing differently?

Not what did they enjoy.

Not what did they learn.

Not whether they'd recommend the workshop to a colleague.

What has changed?

Are they having better conversations?

Are they giving clearer feedback?

Are they delegating more effectively?

Are they creating better environments for their teams?

And, perhaps most importantly, are those changes sticking?

Because you can have the best training evaluation scores in the world.

But if everyone goes back to doing exactly what they did before, what have you actually achieved?

Apart from a very expensive day out of the office.

And possibly a nice buffet.

The problem isn't always the training

Here's where I think we need to be careful.

It's easy to blame the programme when behaviour doesn't change.

"The training didn't work."

Really?

Or did we send someone back into an environment where nothing supported them to do anything differently?

Imagine you've just taught a group of managers how to empower their teams.

They leave understanding why autonomy matters.

They're excited to give people more ownership.

Then they return to a workplace where their own manager questions every decision, expects to be copied into every email and wants constant updates on everything.

How long do you think that new behaviour is going to last?

Or imagine teaching someone how to have regular coaching conversations.

They understand the value.

They want to do it.

But their diary is packed from nine until five, every single day, and they're measured almost entirely on how quickly they get through their operational workload.

Something's got to give.

And usually, it's the development.

You can't expect people to change their behaviour if the environment keeps rewarding them for doing what they've always done.

That's not just a training problem.

That's a leadership and culture problem.

And it's one we need to take seriously.

Your manager has a bigger role than you might think

One of the things I find frustrating is when organisations invest significant amounts of money in developing leaders but barely involve their managers in the process.

Someone gets nominated for a programme.

They attend.

They complete the modules.

They receive a certificate.

And their manager might ask:

"How was the course?"

"Yeah, really good."

"Great."

And that's the end of that.

What a missed opportunity.

Imagine instead that the manager had a conversation beforehand.

What are you hoping to get from this?

Where do you want to improve?

What situations are you currently finding challenging?

Then afterwards:

What stood out?

What are you going to try?

Where might you need some support?

And a couple of weeks later:

How did it go?

What worked?

What would you do differently next time?

Nothing particularly complicated.

No seventeen-page development document.

No new process that requires three levels of sign-off.

Just a few decent conversations.

Because the person who can have the biggest influence on whether someone applies their learning is often the person they work for every day.

Not the facilitator.

Not the training provider.

Not even the L&D team.

Their manager.

And if we're serious about leadership development, we need to help managers understand that responsibility.

Development doesn't happen when it's convenient

Here's something else I've been thinking about.

We tend to organise development around diaries.

A workshop next month.

A coaching session in three weeks.

A leadership programme spread over six months.

And there's absolutely a place for all of those things.

Structured development matters.

Having dedicated time to step away from the day job matters.

But leadership challenges don't politely wait until your next development session.

They happen on a random Wednesday afternoon.

When someone's just challenged you in front of the team.

When you've got to give feedback to someone you really like.

When two colleagues aren't getting along.

When you've made a decision that's gone down like a lead balloon.

Or when you're sitting there thinking:

"How the hell am I supposed to deal with this?"

That's when development becomes real.

Not when you're discussing a hypothetical scenario in a workshop.

When you're actually facing something.

And I think we need to start asking a different question.

Rather than simply asking how we get more people onto development programmes, perhaps we should be asking:

How do we help people use what they've learned when they actually need it?

Because those are two very different challenges.

Sometimes all someone needs is five minutes

Not every leadership challenge requires another training course.

Sometimes someone just needs a bit of space to think.

A conversation with their manager.

A colleague who'll challenge their assumptions.

A coach who'll ask a question they haven't considered.

Or five minutes to stop reacting and start thinking about what they actually want to achieve.

Think about someone preparing for a performance conversation.

They've already attended the training.

They understand the principles.

They know they need to be clear, fair and specific.

But now it's real.

And they're nervous.

They don't necessarily need another three-hour workshop on giving feedback.

They might just need someone to ask:

"What outcome are you trying to achieve?"

"What expectations have already been agreed?"

"What do you need the other person to understand?"

"And what are you going to do if the conversation doesn't go the way you expect?"

Five minutes.

A few decent questions.

And suddenly they're approaching the conversation with a bit more clarity and confidence.

That's development too.

In fact, I'd argue it's some of the most valuable development we can provide.

Because it's directly connected to something they're about to do.

We need to stop treating learning as something separate from work

I think this is where the real opportunity sits.

For years, we've talked about creating learning cultures.

We've encouraged people to take ownership of their development.

We've built academies, programmes, resources and learning platforms.

And there's some brilliant work happening.

But I wonder whether we've sometimes made development feel like another thing people have to fit into their already busy lives.

Something additional.

Something that happens when they've got time.

Which, as we all know, is usually somewhere between never and absolutely bloody never.

What if we approached it differently?

What if development wasn't always something people had to step away from work to do?

What if it became part of how they worked?

A conversation before a challenging meeting.

A moment of reflection after something hasn't gone well.

A question from a manager that helps someone think differently.

A chance to practise something new and get feedback while it's still fresh.

None of that replaces structured development.

But it makes structured development much more valuable.

Because now people aren't just learning things.

They're using them.

So what should we do differently?

I don't think the answer is to stop running leadership programmes.

Quite the opposite.

I think we need to get even better at designing them.

But we also need to stop thinking the programme itself is the finished product.

If I were challenging an organisation on its approach to leadership development, I'd start with four questions.

1. What do we actually want people to do differently?

Be specific.

"Become a better leader" sounds lovely.

But what does that actually mean?

What behaviours need to change?

What should their teams experience differently?

What would success look like in six months?

2. What happens before the workshop?

Are managers involved?

Do participants understand why they're attending?

Have they identified something real they want to work on?

Or are they just turning up because someone put their name on a list?

3. What happens afterwards?

Who's helping them apply what they've learned?

Where are they getting feedback?

What opportunities do they have to practise?

And who's checking whether anything has actually changed?

4. What support is available when they need it?

Not just when there's another workshop.

Not just when their manager happens to have a free half-hour.

When they're actually facing something.

Because that's often when a small amount of support can make a massive difference.

And if we can't answer those questions, perhaps we need to have a word with ourselves about what we're calling leadership development.

Wednesday is where the real work starts

I'll finish with this.

I love seeing people leave a leadership workshop feeling energised.

I love the conversations, the lightbulb moments and the confidence people can build when they're given time to think about how they lead.

That stuff matters.

But I've become increasingly convinced that the real measure of leadership development isn't how people feel when they leave the room.

It's what they do when they get back to work.

When things get busy.

When something goes wrong.

When they're under pressure.

When they have to make a decision.

When they need to have a conversation they'd rather avoid.

That's when we find out whether the learning has made a difference.

And that's when people need support the most.

So by all means, let's keep creating brilliant leadership programmes.

Let's challenge people.

Let's inspire them.

Let's give them the knowledge, skills and confidence to lead.

But let's stop pretending our job is finished when everyone fills in the feedback form.

Because leadership development doesn't fail because people stop learning. It fails when we stop helping them apply what they've learned.

Tuesday might be where the learning starts.

But Wednesday is where leadership happens.

Confident leaders. Stronger teams. Real results.