Effective leadership development addresses the gap directly, challenging leaders to confront the difference between how they see themselves and how others experience them.
Closing this gap doesn’t just transform individuals, its transforms whole organizations.
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Is leadership development fit for the future?
- The same Harvard Business Impact study showed that the most common challenge facing leadership development in 2025 is a lack of time for learners to complete training. Almost half of respondents cited it as the biggest barrier. But at what cost? It‘s vital to provide space for leaders to reflect and review and deal with interpersonal difficulties that affect their ability to effectively lead their teams.
- The 2023 edition of the same report cited that only six in 10 senior leaders reported that their organization emphasizes self-awareness, and only 56% said their immediate supervisors consistently display self-awareness.
- Despite the positive mindset around increasing training, the Gartner report (60 countries, all industries, 1,400 HR leaders) also showed that 70% of HR leaders say their current leadership programs are not preparing managers for the future and 74% say managers are not adequately equipped to lead change.
- Just as worrying, the Center for Creative Leadership revealed last year that 60% of new managers have never received any training when transitioning into their first leadership role
- Even worse, according to Gallup in 2025, 44 per cent of managers - not just new managers - say they have had no formal management training at all.
- According to online leadership development platform LEADX, leadership development is mandatory at only 54% of companies they surveyed in 2024.
- They also report that average leadership development budgets dropped by over 70% between 2023 and 2024 due to economic pressures and AI-driven restructuring.
- What’s more, 48% of the leadership development professionals they surveyed expect budgets to remain flat and 26% expect further cuts this year.
With many organizations offering no formal leadership training at all, and others cutting budgets, the risk is obvious: underprepared leaders steering companies through complex times. Treating leadership development as a strategic investment, not a discretionary spend, is critical to building resilience and a competitive edge for most organizations.
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People quit bosses, not jobs
- 50% of Americans report having left a job to escape their boss according to a Gallup study.
- Managers account for at least 70% of the variability in team engagement levels, according to Gallup's findings from over 100K workplace interviews.
Talented people leave if their leaders don’t lead well, or if they fail to create a tolerant, empathetic organizational or team culture that they can believe in.
The smartest organizations are recognizing that investing in dedicated ‘human skills’ training will help leaders manage teams more efficiently, foster collaboration, act as change agents and mentors and adapt to dynamic workplace environments. With the increasing trend for remote and hybrid work cultures, empathy and adaptability have become essential for sustaining employee engagement and productivity.
Today’s leadership means trust, loyalty and high stakes
The stakes are high. Traditional business metrics like profitability are important, but an organization’s health also depends on the nature of its relational leadership. Trust and loyalty from colleagues are earned by creating environments where people feel respected, valued, and able to grow.
- According to the 2025 Korn Ferry Global Workforce Survey (of 15,000 professionals), 43% of senior executives struggle with impostor syndrome, making them hesitant to speak up, challenge ideas or fully engage in high-level discussions.
Given that remote and hybrid work models are reshaping leadership, managing teams from afar requires a different skillset.
For all types of leaders, increasing self-awareness, understanding their own and others’ preferences and their impact on team dynamics, being able to recognize and control their emotional responses and flex their communication styles are the keys to building business relationships that lead to a healthy culture as well as healthy profits.
Self-aware leaders can recognize their biases and emotions and manage them effectively to make sound decisions.
The most ideal solution to developing great leaders lies in adopting an organization-wide framework for understanding more about people’s values, working styles, communication styles and interpersonal dynamics surrounding career ambitions, professional development and even conflict management.
Leadership support from the leadership team
And for the CHRO, who increasingly has a place at the board table, they must be supported to deliver this on all fronts. When the need to prioritize human-focused skills is recognized by the C-suite, organizations are less likely to experience drops in workplace morale, retention and organizational performance.
Senior HR leaders know from decades of experience how to spot early signs of disengagement, burnout, breakdowns in team trust and drops in performance.
It follows that they (and ideally their fellow leaders at all levels) should be equipped to mitigate these risks by empowering their diverse mix of colleagues to communicate, understand one another and collaborate in a safe, structured way on all things values, purpose and motivation-related, as well as in their core business areas.
Let’s work smarter to help our leaders thrive.