Leadership | Wondering Why Your Managers Don't Change Their Ways?

One in three. That’s how many learners you can expect to actually adopt the behaviours you painstakingly teach through your leadership development programmes¹. Research papers, management studies, and talent professional surveys tell us even that figure is rather hopeful.

In light of this, we spent the past 18 months investigating why employees do — and don’t — adopt the behaviours they learn in leadership development programmes. We interviewed talent professionals and students, ran experiments, reviewed the academic literation on behavioural science and neuroscience, and reflected on the leadership programmes we’ve run for clients for nearly 50 years now.

Some clear lessons have emerged, with important implications for the future of our industry.

Conventional wisdom reigns