By Chally Kacelnik
Leadership programs often generate a lot of enthusiasm. Participants leave with new language, fresh insights, and genuine intent to do things differently. Then the reality of work reasserts itself, and within weeks, there’s revert. Little, if anything, has ultimately changed.
After all, people are returning to the same conditions they left. They face the same pressures and expectations about what matters most. Without deliberate changes to how work is structured, development has nowhere to land. And business as usual is that much more disappointing – you had a flash of something better, but you’ve ultimately wasted your time and money.
This is why LKS Quaero’s approach focuses on application rather than abstraction. Our programs are tightly connected to the work people are actually doing, including through a range of assessment tasks that require practical implementation. Development is anchored in participants’ current roles, with attention paid to authority, accountability, and the practical constraints they face. Follow-up and feedback reinforce new ways of working, so learning doesn’t go out the window once the program ends.
The other arm to this is thinking systemically, not just individually. We involve people’s managers so they get practical support to implement their learning, resulting in organisational change as the program is underway. More broadly, by involving program sponsors and senior leaders who champion the program and the program participants, there’s real internal ownership of leadership development and a green light to make change.
Leadership development delivers impact when it changes behaviour in context, not when it simply adds a bunch of free-floating ideas. When organisations understand that distinction, development becomes a lever for real, sustained improvement.
At LKS Quaero, we run leadership development programming that sticks. For more information, visit us at lksquaero.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook.
