Leadership development programme design

I design facilitator-led leadership development programmes for corporates, banks, engineering and manufacturing companies, and founder-led businesses in South Africa. The aim is simple and hard: leaders behave differently at work six months after the programme, not just on the last day of it.

Most leadership programmes are well designed as events. The content is sound, the facilitators are good, and the feedback forms are positive. Then nothing much changes. That isn't a content problem. It's a design problem: the programme was built for the classroom, and the leader goes back to a system that was never part of the design.

What a leadership programme should actually change

A good programme starts from the behaviour you need, in the situations where it matters. "Better communication" isn't a design brief. "Team leaders hold a difficult performance conversation within a week, instead of escalating it" is.

I start every programme by asking three questions:

• What should leaders do differently, in which specific moments?
• What currently makes the old behaviour the sensible choice? That might be targets, reporting lines, a manager's habits, or the culture of the team.
• What does each leader privately stand to lose by changing? This is usually the part nobody asks about, and it's usually the part that decides whether the programme works.

How I design a leadership development programme

1. Diagnose the system, not just the skills gap. I interview sponsors, line managers and a sample of participants, and look at the structures leaders work inside. The programme has to account for what will pull people back.
2. Define the behaviours in context. I set out a small number of concrete shifts, written in the language of the business, that can be observed.
3. Design facilitator-led experiences that reach below the surface. Leaders practise on their real situations during the sessions, and work on the commitments and assumptions that hold their current behaviour in place.
4. Design the return, not just the session. That covers manager briefings, peer groups, on-the-job assignments and a sponsor role, so the workplace reinforces what the sessions started.
5. Measure behaviour, not satisfaction. I agree with the sponsor beforehand what evidence would show the programme worked, and when we'll look for it.

I learned this way of working building a leadership development centre of excellence for a 20,000-person industrial group, and later designing culture-change programmes inside a large financial institution. See the case studies: The Hundred-Day Challenge and Servant Leadership.

Face-to-face, online or blended?

Knowledge transfers well online. Behaviour change under pressure mostly doesn't. When leaders need to try something uncomfortable, get honest feedback and see their own patterns, a well-facilitated face-to-face session is still the most powerful setting I know.

My usual design is face-to-face at the core, with short online elements around it: preparation before, practice and peer check-ins between sessions, and a follow-up afterwards. I'll recommend fully online delivery where the goal is mainly knowledge, or where the group is spread across countries.

Training your in-house facilitators

Training your own facilitators is a core part of how I work, not an add-on. Outside facilitators cost money every time and leave when the contract ends. In-house facilitators cost time up front, and then they multiply. They also send a message no outside consultant can: this is something we do for ourselves.

I build that capability step by step, not in a train-the-trainer afternoon. Your people move from participant to observer to co-facilitator, then lead a session with a senior facilitator alongside, and are signed off when they are ready. By the end, your own people can run the programme without me. See how it worked in the Servant Leadership case, where colleagues ran every session.

Who this is for

• L&D leaders and HR directors who need a programme that shows results, not just good feedback scores
• OD practitioners who need the leadership element of a wider change to hold
• Founders and executive teams of growing businesses whose next layer of leaders isn't yet carrying the load

Questions L&D leaders ask