The Leadership Illusion: Why Traditional L&D Misses Senior Executives

Start with the work, not the workshop

A leadership programme can be well attended, highly rated and still leave the organisation asking what changed. Completion tells you that someone finished a course. It does not tell you whether a difficult decision improved, a team became more accountable or a recurring operational problem was resolved. Those are separate questions, and they need separate measures.

The problem is not that coaching or workshops are inherently ineffective. It is that learning can become detached from the decisions leaders need to make. Reflection has value, but it needs a route back into action. Peer discussion can offer useful challenge, but it needs a clear purpose, skilled facilitation and follow-through.

Four behaviours, 89% of leadership effectiveness

In its explainer “What is leadership?”, McKinsey reports that its analysis of academic literature and a global survey of nearly 200,000 people in 81 organisations identified four types of behaviours that account for 89 percent of leadership effectiveness.

• Being supportive

• Operating with a strong orientation toward results

• Seeking different perspectives

• Solving problems effectively

This finding concerns leadership effectiveness. It is not a measure of leadership-development programme failure or return on investment.

These behaviours provide a useful lens for programme design. The Catalyst is designed to practise supportive challenge, a focus on results, different perspectives and effective problem-solving through live business challenges and clear commitments. That connection is our design rationale, not evidence that McKinsey has evaluated or endorsed the Catalyst.

A more useful diagnostic

Before commissioning development, name the business problem. Which decisions are taking too long? Where is accountability unclear? What behaviour would you expect to see differently? Record a starting point, agree who will observe progress and review what actually happens. Avoid treating participant satisfaction as a substitute for evidence of application.

The Catalyst is designed around that connection: a live leadership challenge, structured peer discussion and an explicit commitment at the end of each clinic. This is a programme design rationale, not a claim that cohorts always outperform other formats. The right choice still depends on the leader, the problem and the support available.

The question for your next L&D review

If the programme succeeds, what will a colleague see the leader doing differently? If nobody can answer that clearly, sharpen the brief before expanding the budget.

Source

McKinsey & Company, “What is leadership?”, McKinsey Explainers. Read the source article.