Recent research studies show that some of the largest corporations in developed countries spend more than $14 billion in the process of trying to develop future leaders. However, there is no crop of new leaders coming to take over from the already old and experienced leaders, as most of the leadership programs fail due to the following reasons.
- Failing to Measure Results
Most of the leadership programs focus on impacting leadership knowledge and skills to individuals without paying much attention in measuring the results. This means that a leadership program fails without the mentors being aware whether they have impacted any leadership knowledge to the workers. This leads to leadership program failure as mentees cannot highlight any tangible lesson they have learned.
- Not Implementing the Lessons Learned
Implementation is always an essential aspect that any person who has undergone any training should experience. Lack of training means that individuals cannot test whether they have learned anything. A large number of corporations invest in leadership development programs without following up with reliable implementation strategies. This leads to leadership failure as all the theoretical lessons learned in a class setting results to nothing.
- Lack of Real World Scenarios
Most of the leadership development programs are structured in a way that they only address theoretical scenarios, especially those written on the books. The leadership development program ends up failing because the learners have not been exposed to real-world situations. All the skills and knowledge learned are virtual in nature and cannot be applied in a real world.
- Lack of Management Support
Most of the leadership development programs that are implemented by some of the largest corporations around the world don’t have management support. This means that they lack the necessary funds and technical support to have the desired impact. Most of the leadership development programs end up collapsing somewhere the middle of the program.
- Lack of Reflection Time
It is common knowledge that classroom lessons have break intervals where learners have some time to rest and reflect on what they have learned. This is not the same for leadership development programs, as learners are not given time to reflect on the leadership skills learned. Programs are often jammed with too much content in a short period, which leads to no real results.