HR and L&D leaders
What makes leadership development stick after the workshop ends?
The transfer of learning from a workshop to actual management behaviour is where almost all leadership development fails. The workshop produces knowledge, insight, and intention. The Monday morning after produces meetings, emails, and the familiar pull of how things have always been done. What bridges that gap is not a better workshop. It’s what happens after it.
Framework: Brian Hartzer’s Leadership Star · Practices: All five practices
Commitment made in public
The most reliable predictor of behaviour change is a public commitment. When a manager states, in front of their peers, one specific thing they’re going to do differently — and names who they’re accountable to for it — the probability of follow-through increases substantially. This is why the last session of any leadership programme should not be a summary. It should be a commitment round.
Follow-up that’s real, not administrative
A check-in email from L&D six weeks after the programme asking “how’s it going?” is not follow-up. A conversation between a manager and their own leader that specifically asks “what did you commit to changing, and what’s different now?” is follow-up. The difference is accountability with someone who has genuine leverage.
Spaced practice beats intensive exposure
A half-day session every six weeks over six months produces more behaviour change than a three-day residential programme. The space between sessions is where practice happens — and practice, not understanding, is what changes behaviour. Design the programme around what happens between sessions.
Where judgment matters
Some organisations run leadership development as an event. Others run it as a system. The first produces participants. The second produces leaders. The difference is usually senior commitment to the follow-through phase, which is less visible and less exciting than the programme launch.
In your last leadership programme, what was the specific mechanism for holding participants accountable for what they committed to change?
Books for your team
Special prices are available for bulk and organisational orders. Tell us the quantity, the delivery country and when you need them, and we will confirm the options.