How to measure leadership development (and why programs fail)

Organizations are putting more into leadership development, but many aren't getting more out. Gartner reported in 2024 that 75% of organizations had made significant updates to their leadership programs, and more than half were increasing spending, yet they weren't seeing results.

Measurement is how you find out what works, and how you prove it. Here's why so many programs fall short, and how to measure yours.

Why leadership development programs fail

Recent research points to four common reasons.

1. Too much classroom, too little real work. Gartner found that traditional leadership development, such as seminars and lectures, has a negative effect on development.
2. Skills alone don't change how people lead. In Gartner's research, focusing on manager skills proficiency boosted manager effectiveness by only 4%.
3. What leaders learn is hard to apply. In research Gartner presented in 2025, only 23% of HR leaders agreed it's easy for leaders to apply what they learn in leadership development to their work.
4. Little support back at work. In CIPD's 2023 Learning at Work survey, mostly of UK learning professionals, only 36% agreed that line managers help their team apply what they learned.

Only half of learning teams say they can measure impact

The same CIPD survey found that only 50% of respondents agreed they had a process for assessing learning impact. And in a 2023 Gartner survey of 98 HR leaders, only 25% felt confident their investments in manager development were working.

If only half of learning teams say they have a process to assess impact, a well-measured program stands out, both to your chief financial officer (CFO) and to the leaders taking part.

How to measure leadership development

One well-established structure is the Kirkpatrick Model, which looks at four levels:

• Reaction: did participants find it useful and relevant?
• Learning: did they gain the knowledge and skills intended?
• Behavior: are they leading differently in their day-to-day work?
• Results: did the business outcomes you targeted improve?

Kirkpatrick Partners says it's critical to start with the fourth level. Decide the results you want first, then work back to the behaviors that will produce them.

Measure behavior with the lightest method that works

Behavior is where programs succeed or fail. You don't need a heavy process to track it. Choose the lightest method that gives you a fair picture:

• Manager feedback: the leader's own manager rates a few agreed behaviors at the start and at each review. It's the simplest to run.
• 180-degree feedback: the leader and their direct reports rate the same few behaviors. It's quicker than a full 360.
• A short team pulse survey: three to five questions to the leader's team each quarter.
• Full 360-degree feedback: from manager, peers and direct reports: worth the extra effort for senior leaders.

Whichever you choose, make it a conversation. As a 2026 Harvard Business Review article put it, 360-degree feedback alone does not improve leadership effectiveness. Leaders need goals, practice and support to act on what they hear.

Track leading and lagging indicators

Kirkpatrick Partners recommends identifying both leading and lagging indicators. Leading indicators move first and show whether you're on track. Lagging indicators show the final result, but take longer to appear. For example:

• Leading: goals agreed and progress against them, manager feedback, the engagement scores of the leader's team
• Lagging: retention of high-potential leaders, internal promotion rates, how long new managers take to reach full performance

Team engagement deserves a place on that list. Gallup finds that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement, so it's a sensible early signal of a leader's development.

Choose your indicators with business leaders before the program starts, and record a baseline. You can't show change without a starting point.

Put a number on it when you need to

If your CFO wants a financial return, the Phillips ROI Methodology uses five levels, with return on investment (ROI) as the fifth. Our guide to the ROI of coaching shows how to prove it with a pilot, step by step, including the formula.

A measurement plan you can set up this quarter

1. Start with the business result. Write down what must improve, and what leaders must do differently to get there.
2. Agree on three to five measures across behavior and results, with a mix of leading and lagging indicators.
3. Record a baseline for each one.
4. Pick a light way to gather feedback, such as manager feedback or a short team survey, and build it into regular check-ins.
5. Review at set points, such as three, six and twelve months.
6. Report in your CFO's language: what changed, what it's worth, and what you'll do next.

Where coaching fits

Coaching works on the level where many programs fall short: behavior at work. A 2023 meta-analysis found that workplace coaching is effective in achieving positive organizational outcomes, and a 2023 review of randomized controlled trials found that coaching's impact on behavior was higher than its impact on attitudes.

Early evidence suggests it works online too: the same 2023 meta-analysis found that both face-to-face and virtual coaching were associated with significant positive outcomes. Sama's coaching is online, so each leader works with the best coach for them, and matching takes location and language into account.

Coaching is also easier to measure when goals are set at the start. Sama's platform tracks goals, engagement and progress, and gives HR teams a dashboard to see impact across the organization.

What Sama users report

• 74% of users achieve their defined goals
• 64% report tangible, role-relevant skill development

Reported by Sama users, as of September 30, 2025.

Book a demo to see how Sama gives HR teams a dashboard to see impact across the organization.

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