Leadership Development: How Great Leaders Are Made.

Leadership Development: How Great Leaders Are Made and What You Can Do

Has this happened at your organization?

• Rising leaders feel stagnant, stall out, or jump ship to your competitors.
• Top talent walks out the door, and their leader is the reason they give.
• Leadership lacks trust, authority, or precision in their communication and decision-making.
• C-Suite members exit with no clear succession plan.

These outcomes can wreak havoc at every level. Yet all are tied to the same fundamental problem.

A lack of leadership development.

Our guide, based on almost 40 years of helping the world’s best and largest organizations develop their leaders, covers what leadership development is, how good leaders become great ones, why communication sits at the center of it, and how to build a program that keeps your organization ready for succession, strong on retention, and building a durable culture at scale.

What is leadership development?

Leadership development is the process of building the judgment, capability, and communication that prepare people to guide teams and organizations toward a shared vision. It runs from rising directors to the C-suite and combines coaching, training, mentoring, and stretch assignments, so new skills get tested in real work.

Most programs cover core elements around communication, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, public speaking, and executive presence.

Training and capacity-building efforts can support a pipeline of emerging talent while keeping current leaders on top of their game.

Before launching a program or implementing processes at scale, it helps to start with an important question: How is leadership defined at your organization?

Why is leadership development important?

Leadership development is important because leaders decide two things every organization depends on: whether the strategy gets executed and whether good people stay. When leaders can explain a decision, keep people moving through it, and invest in the people around them, both get easier.

It serves three core functions: enshrining values, solidifying processes, and strengthening the chain of succession. Each one is rooted in clear communication.

• Enshrining Values: Values tend to trickle down from leadership before manifesting in the workforce. Development aligns how values are communicated and acted out at every organizational level.
• Solidifying Processes: Rolling out new expectations is easier when leaders and high performers are tapped to help implement changes. The more a workforce has trusted sources of information and knowledge of the correct way of doing things, the lower the chances that efforts derail into costly periods of diagnosing and retooling existing systems.
• Strengthening the Chain of Succession: In climates of uncertainty, having a deep roster of qualified candidates ready to step in and lead at a moment’s notice can lend peace of mind to investors, customers, shareholders, and board members.

When implemented effectively and reinforced on an ongoing basis, these programs help organizations grow and retain strong leaders, from rising directors to experienced executives. They prepare leaders to guide teams, manage change, resolve conflict, make informed decisions, and deliver business outcomes.

It’s no secret that when employees feel safe and supported, they tend to stick around. As leaders grow into bigger roles, getting tapped for more challenging work is what keeps high performers engaged. It’s one reason leadership training is so closely tied to employee retention.

In Grammarly’s 2024 State of Business Communication report, 90% of business leaders said senior leadership communicates effectively. Only 64% of knowledge workers agreed, an 8% drop from the year before. The view from the top looks better than the view from the team, and closing that gap is part of what turns a good leader into a great one.

For executives, the case is simple. An unprepared leader in front of an enterprise audience is a risk: a reorg explained badly, a strategy that splinters into ten versions before it reaches the front line. The same report estimates miscommunication costs US businesses $1.2 trillion a year. Developing leaders is how executives protect the plans they’ve already approved.

Who should get leadership development?

Leadership development belongs with the people already showing leadership, whether or not they have the title: the director others go to for advice, the senior leader being considered for a bigger seat, and the high performer who steadies a team through a hard quarter.

There are two schools of thought around who qualifies.

How do you identify future leaders?

Future leaders typically demonstrate a zeal and dedication for their profession that’s palpable to any onlooker. They motivate their co-workers toward excellence and give feedback when it’s needed. Development can also serve as a pathway for people who display outward curiosity, motivation across a range of projects, and an unquenchable willingness to learn. Showing up consistently in meetings, taking initiative on new and challenging tasks, and serving as an informal mentor for colleagues are all indications of fledgling leadership skills.

Eligible candidates in your organization who might meet the above criteria can include current leaders, rising directors, those who aspire to lead teams in the future, or people who wield extended influence on their team. Leaders don’t need direct reports to have followers. Investing in them through developmental pathways can prime them for leadership down the line and encourage them to realign their thinking from having a job to having a career.

Duarte helps organizations sort out who’s ready and what each group needs, from the high performer leading without the title to the executive who’s next in line for the top job. Our Leadership Communication Gap Assessment is a quick way to see where your leaders stand today.

Should everyone get leadership development?

On the other hand, there’s a strong argument that everyone should qualify.

No one is born a leader. And while all professionals have some innate abilities, few are naturally equipped for leadership, let alone at the executive level. However, orienting development efforts toward simply filling the corner office can risk suffocating your organization’s overall potential.

For readers skeptical of the ROI, nurturing strategic communication and critical thinking skills at scale can only serve to reinforce sound, defensible decision-making at every level. The proverbial separating of wheat and chaff would occur when candidates are chosen to fill specific positions. But in an organization where everyone gets that training, there’s only wheat.

Why communication is the core of leadership

Effective leaders are exceptional, empathetic communicators with high emotional intelligence. They speak with clarity and share their ideas with conviction. Whether they’re addressing an audience of one or 10,000, they know how to read and respond to non-verbal cues and adjust accordingly. Experienced leaders show command over cadence, contrast, and breath work, and they use the tools of persuasion to hook and keep attention.

Every industry asks something different of its leaders: engineering depth in tech, market fluency in finance, regulatory command in healthcare. What they all share is the need to turn that expertise into a decision other people will act on, and that runs on communication and business storytelling.

Strong leaders are clear communicators who use story to motivate others through the conviction they have for their vision. They build trust through consistency and integrity, and lead by example. And it’s often a handful of communication shifts that separate good leaders from great ones.

When current and aspiring leaders come to Duarte for training and coaching, we help them refine their communication across multiple dimensions. That covers delivery, through eye contact, body language, posture, and voice, and it covers how leaders structure and process information: presenting ideas in recognizable story structures and being receptive to feedback through Adaptive Listening®.

There’s nothing soft about communication skills. They get tested in specific moments:

• The recommendation to the executive team, where a Duarte Big Idea™ (a clear point of view with something at stake for the audience) gets the decision made in the room
• The vision talk, where a Presentation Sparkline™ moves the audience between what is and what could be until the future feels worth the effort
• The bad news, where delivering it well is a leadership test nobody volunteers for
• The hard one-on-one, where presence helps strong leaders through difficult conversations
• The rally after a hard quarter, where the right motivating story gives people a reason to keep going

Each of those moments works better when the leader treats the audience as the hero. The leader plays mentor, handing people the insight and tools they need to act, and the big idea gets framed around what the audience gains.

How to build an effective leadership development program

An effective leadership development program ties a few clear business outcomes to the skills leaders need to reach them, then builds those skills through coaching, training, and real assignments over time.

When designing an enterprise leadership development program, define the business outcomes you need and the metrics for success before laying significant groundwork. A leadership development strategy then ties them to the capabilities leaders need at each level and decides who you’re investing in first.

Say the goal is cutting the number of meetings. A good L&D team starts by interrogating the problem:

• What employee feedback have we received about this problem?
• What is leadership’s position and visibility of the problem?
• Is there a clear skills gap that could be closed?
• Are presenters making actionable recommendations?
• Are audiences adapting their listening to meet evolving speaker needs?
• What’s the best way to frame our solution for leadership approval?

Cutting meetings could mean adopting a new tool. But if the problem stems from communication, opaque recommendations, or poor listening, the fix is much larger.

Development that includes role playing, coaching, simulated problem-solving, case studies, and thought exercises can help demonstrate program value while ensuring new information sticks.

Effective programs are a series of workshops, mentorships, modules, and learning opportunities that combine to solve complex, often intangible goals. Becoming a better leader, winning any room, or connecting with any audience are examples of outcomes that these programs strive to achieve.

Common skills covered include:

• Presentation delivery
• Honing non-verbal communication for increased trust and authority
• Change communication
• Executive presence
• Listening skills
• Data storytelling
• Visual storytelling

Working backwards from a key outcome can help determine what training is needed. Take for example a major product launch at a top industry tradeshow. Department heads, lead engineers, and C-suite are dividing appearances to generate as much buzz as possible. To ensure the company makes a positive impression, speakers need to be ready to meet the moment. This means taking the main stage with confidence, crafting compelling data stories that outline the product’s contributions, and if there’s a panel, town hall, or Q&A, using Adaptive Listening® to use the right S.A.I.D. Listening Style™ where appropriate.

L&D departments may handle the curricula, but HR helps assess the workforce’s aptitude and pinpoint continuing investment areas.

At the end of the day, HR is responsible for helping to create organizations that leaders want to lead.

Every level of leadership needs its own track, because a new director, a VP running a function, and a member of the executive team walk into very different rooms. That includes the managers who report to them, which is where communication training for managers fits. Organizations that choose to invest in existing talent telegraph a commitment to employee growth: a key element for sustaining retention.

For senior leaders, coaching is often where growth happens fastest. Duarte speaker coaching works with leaders on the real moments in front of them and serves as a sounding board for continued growth. Partnerships begin with an assessment of current needs, immediate concerns, and long-term outcomes.

Some common problems include:

• Preparing for an upcoming keynote or major presentation
• Tightening a high-stakes pitch for stakeholder or board approval
• Polishing presence for in-person or on-camera appearances
• Aligning body language, contrast, breath work, and pacing to match content
• Practicing strategies to earn and sustain audience engagement

Off-the-shelf training programs rarely (if ever) address the specific challenges an enterprise is facing. The right partner starts with your business outcomes, works with your leaders on the real moments in front of them, and leaves behind capability your organization keeps. Some organizations bring us in to shape the program end to end. Others start with a single cohort of senior leaders, or with a high-stakes moment that can’t wait.

For each leader, the program becomes a plan of their own. A leadership development plan connects professional goals with business needs for cross-functional success.

Here’s how to create a leadership development plan:

• Identify specific quarterly and long-term organizational goals
• Assess current skill gaps and strengths of possible candidates
• Set clear benchmarks for success that bake accountability into the plan
• Justify spend with projected ROI in terms of skills gained, crises averted, opportunities seized

Vague aspirations like “getting better at presenting” lack forward movement, whereas “give 3 high stakes talks by the end of Q2” sets up a clear challenge to overcome.

Building these plans across a whole bench of leaders is a lot to take on alone. We partner with CHROs and L&D teams to design the program and the plans inside it, so let’s talk about what your leaders need.

How does leadership development support succession planning?

Leadership development supports succession planning by getting people ready for critical roles before those roles open up. Put succinctly, succession planning is the contingency and preparation put in place when a leader exits their office or role. Vice presidents, understudies, and second-string quarterbacks are all examples of succession planning in action.

Beyond just a position, leadership is a function. Decision-making, vision planning, and budget approvals don’t dry up when there’s a vacancy. Having a talented pool of leadership-ready candidates in the chain-of-command keeps organizations moving under even the most extreme circumstances.

Development programs are foundational to effective succession planning. Whether candidates are hand-picked for future vacancies or cultivated at scale, effective development aims to instill the core communication traits that define leadership for that organization. A CFO will likely have a different specialized skillset than an HR director. But both roles demand polished delivery, the capacity to articulate actionable recommendations, and storytelling that can center competing stakeholder needs.

It’s the responsibility of those in power to provide runways for their replacements to get comfortable in the big chair before assuming the full weight of an office.

Developing presentation, data storytelling, audience-first delivery, and listening skillsets at scale increases clarity, precision, and the potential for faster aligned outcomes. And should disaster strike, teams and departments have qualified professionals at the ready to assume greater responsibility.

A leadership transition is also a change the whole organization feels. In Illuminate, Nancy Duarte and Patti Sanchez call the leader who carries people through change a torchbearer, and every change moves through the same five stages: Dream, Leap, Fight, Climb, and Arrive. People need something different from their leader at each one. Our own survey of 217 leaders found 49% had no plan that accounted for the stages people move through during a change. The Torchbearer Toolkit diagnostic shows where your change stands, and change communication training for leaders builds that skill across your leadership team.

How do you measure leadership development?

Measure leadership development against the goals you set at the start: whether leaders’ behavior changes, whether the people they lead respond differently, and whether the business outcomes actually move.

Ideally, those goals should be specific, measurable, and deliver real impact across your workforce.

Some examples of measurable goals include:

• Cutting the number of weekly meetings
• Boosting skills certifications
• Increasing cross-team collaboration
• Reducing employee churn
• Strengthening employee feedback
• Growing revenue YoY in the next fiscal calendar

All of the above can be represented as a numerical value and monitored for ongoing performance.

Companies often evaluate success through a combination of performance reviews, manager feedback, self-reflections, and 360-degree leadership assessments. This provides actionable data to adjust programming to meet evolving needs. Long term tracking can help leadership reflect on progress, target emerging opportunities for skills growth, and justify ongoing investment.

Communication is harder to put a number on than a sales target, and it still leaves a trail. Watch how many rounds an executive deck takes to get approved, how many follow-up meetings a big announcement generates, and how often a decision gets reopened after the meeting ends.

Read: Why Leadership Development Fails and How to Fix It

Developing your leaders or building a program? Here’s how we can help.

Duarte has spent nearly 40 years in the rooms where leaders get tested: the keynote, the board update, the reorg announcement, the first all-teams meeting in a new role. We work alongside your leaders on the moments in front of them, so they get sharper each time and build the capability to handle the next one without us.

You don’t need to sort out what kind of help you need before you reach out. Talk with a Duarte specialist about your leaders and your goals and we’ll help you figure out the right solution.