A Future-Proof Framework for L&D Leaders Who
Want to Build Leaders Worth Following
A widely cited TED Talk referenced a global study of 4,000 companies in which 58 percent reported significant talent gaps for their most critical leadership roles. Most organizations investing in a custom leadership development program every year are still coming up short on pipeline. That is not a motivation or budget problem. The real issue is whether your program is designed to cultivate the specific attributes required for the modern landscape.
Most L&D leaders I talk with already know whether their leadership development program feels like it is working from the energy in the room and the executive thank-you emails. What they cannot always tell you is whether the program is producing leaders who will still be effective three years from now.
The question is not whether your program is liked. The question is whether it is producing leaders who can lead through what is coming next.
The Real Question Under the Title
“How to tell if your leadership development program is working” is actually two questions. The first question is which metrics to track. Those numbers matter, and we will get to them. But the deeper question is the one most programs never ask: “What is our leadership program looking to produce?” For example, if your program results in high leadership retention you must question is this a positive result or a liability? High retention is a liability if the leaders you are keeping are resistant to change. In that scenario, you are simply securing a pipeline of the wrong talent.
Mark Cuban put this directly in a 2024 interview with CNBC Make It. Asked what skills will matter most for the future of work, he named three:
“The skills you need for a job today, ten years, 100 years from now, are always the same. You need to be curious, because everything’s changing. You need to be agile, because everything’s changing. And you’ve got to be able to adapt, because everything’s always changing.”
Cuban was talking about employees, but the framework lands harder for leaders. A leader who is not curious will not see the shift coming. A leader who is not agile will not pivot when it does. A leader who is not adaptable will lose the team the moment conditions stop matching the playbook. A leadership development program is working when it produces leaders who are visibly curious, demonstrably agile, and proven adaptable under pressure.
When these three skills are integrated, the result is a program that prioritizes behavioral outcomes over simple attendance. Ultimately, the effectiveness of your program is visible in how leaders apply curiosity, demonstrate agility in real-time, and maintain team cohesion under pressure.
The Leadership Proof Point
The ultimate proof point of a working leadership development program is not completion or promotion. It is whether a leader can bring people with them when the path is unclear.
The real test is whether their team would follow them into conditions nobody prepared them for.
Leaders who are followed voluntarily have earned something that cannot be mandated. They have built trust and relational bandwidth to lead through change. A leadership development program that is working yields that kind of leader. Here are the three signals that tell you whether your program is doing it.
Three Signals Your Leadership Development Program
Is Working
Each signal below are the indicators leaders should track when designing and measuring custom leadership programs.
1. Curiosity Is Visible in Your Leaders’ Behavior
A leader devoid of curiosity will continue to optimize for past conditions while the environment shifts beneath them. You cannot train curiosity in a two-day workshop, but a well-designed leadership development program can reward it and make it visible.
Ask yourself: Can we identify three specific instances where a program graduate implemented a new tool, idea, or approach within their team this quarter? If the answer is no, the program is likely rewarding compliance rather than cultivating curiosity.
2. Agility Shows Up in the Moments That Actually Matter
Agility is not speed. It is the ability to pivot intelligently when the situation demands it, hold the strategic thread while changing tactical direction, and absorb new information without losing the team. A leadership development program that builds agility includes structured practice in ambiguous scenarios, stretch assignments, and coaching debriefs. The 70-20-10 model from the Center for Creative Leadership still holds up as a practical heuristic: roughly 70 percent of leadership growth comes from on-the-job experience, 20 percent from social learning, and 10 percent from formal instruction. The ratios are a guiding principle, not a validated formula. Agility is built through practice, not PowerPoint.
A recent TrainingPros hospitality client put this into practice. By building a structured path from top-performing frontline employees into Assistant General Manager roles, the client created a visible leadership pipeline. General Managers built formal business cases to justify hires, which strengthened their strategic thinking. Full breakdown: Driving Change with a New Role: Leadership Development in Hospitality.
Ask yourself: Evaluate your recent graduates against last quarter’s unexpected shifts. Which of them successfully pivoted without sacrificing team morale?
3. Adaptability Is Producing Teams That Follow
A truly adaptable leader does not just survive change personally. They bring their teams with them, absorb the uncertainty, and translate ambiguity into clear next steps. A leadership development program that builds adaptability produces leaders whose teams stay engaged and retained through change. This is the leadership proof point in action.
Dr. Darick Bryant, Director of Learning and Organizational Development at Clean Harbors, made this point directly on the TrainingPros’ Learning Leaders Spotlight podcast. Leading a workforce of more than 24,000 employees across the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, and India, Dr. Bryant argued that empathy and emotional intelligence are no longer soft skills. They are essential competencies. Leaders who lose sight of the humans they are leading create significant organizational risk. He also framed learning itself as a retention strategy, particularly as Gen X approaches retirement and Millennials and Gen Z make up the bulk of the next-generation pipeline.
A program’s success in building adaptability is ultimately reflected in the resilience and performance of the teams those leaders manage. Another TrainingPros hospitality client attacked this directly. New manager turnover sat at 23 percent. Working with our instructional design consultants, the client redesigned new manager onboarding with hands-on training, structured mentorship, 30-60-90-day action plans, and monthly coaching check-ins. Turnover dropped to 7.85 percent. While results vary by organization and starting conditions, that is a two-third reduction in leadership attrition. Full case study: Transforming Onboarding with Blended Learning.
Ask yourself: When the formal playbook is discarded, do these leaders’ teams stay intact and engaged? If the answer is yes, you have developed true adaptability.
What This Is Worth to the Business
When a leadership development program is designed around curiosity, agility, and adaptability, the financial case writes itself. A 2023 BetterManager and Fossicker Group study of 752 organizations across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. found that every $1 invested in a leadership development program returns an average of $7, with a range of $3 to $11 depending on program design. The return comes from increased revenue under better-performing leaders, higher retention, and the ability to be more strategic about when to grow leaders internally versus when to bring in specialized external expertise to accelerate specific outcomes.
Gallup’s 2024 meta-analysis found that business units in the top quartile of engagement outperform bottom-quartile units on multiple outcomes, including 23 percent higher profitability. Manager quality is one of the most consistent predictors. Crystal Richards, Senior Director of Executive Development at TIAA, spoke to this on her Learning Leader Spotlight interview: the leadership development program that moves business metrics pairs technology-driven learning with the human connection that changes leader behavior. As our article on pairing AI tools with human expertise explores, that integration is how you build curiosity, agility, and adaptability at scale.
What to Do If Your Leadership Development Program Is Not Passing These Tests
- Build measurement into design, not after launch. Define 2-3 outcomes tied to curiosity, agility, or adaptability. Establish baseline data before the first session.
- Audit against 70-20-10. If more than 30 percent of your leadership development program is classroom or eLearning without experiential reinforcement, it is not designed to produce behavior change.
- Build 90-day and 6-month application checkpoints. The most effective custom learning solutions include structured follow-up long after the curriculum ends.
- Partner with someone who has done this before. If your internal team is stretched thin, our L&D staffing solutions connect you with vetted instructional designers, facilitators, and measurement experts.
Additional Resources for L&D Leaders
- Download our L&D Guides and Resources library for top book recommendations and program design frameworks.
- Subscribe to the Learning Leader Spotlight podcast for weekly interviews with corporate L&D executives.
- Browse the full TrainingPros blog and visit our YouTube channel for ongoing L&D strategy content.
The Bottom Line
A leadership development program achieves its purpose when it produces leaders who are visibly curious, demonstrably agile, and adaptable under pressure. These are the leaders that teams follow voluntarily, even when the destination is uncertain.
The programs that produce real leaders build the three skills that never go out of date.
2026 Learning Trends Shaping the Future: What Leaders See Coming Next
Need Help Measuring or Redesigning Your Leadership Development Program?
At TrainingPros, our leadership development consultants specialize in designing, delivering, and measuring programs that produce curious, agile, adaptable leaders. Our approach to leadership development has helped many clients win Brandon Hall Awards, cut new manager turnover by more than two-thirds, and build the kind of leadership pipelines that fuel sustainable growth.
When you have more projects than people™, let TrainingPros find the right consultant to start your project with confidence.
Schedule a consultation today.
Frequently Asked Questions
About Leadershipt Development Proograms
What are the most important signals a leadership development program is working?
Focus on three signals that connect directly to future-proof leadership: visible curiosity in how your leaders learn and bring new ideas to their teams, agility when conditions change unexpectedly, and adaptability measured by whether program graduates’ teams stay engaged and retained. These signals tell you whether your leadership development program is producing leaders worth following, not just leaders who completed the cohort.
How long should I wait before measuring leadership development program impact?
Behavior change is typically visible 90 days after a leadership development program ends. Full business impact, including retention, engagement, and performance metrics, usually takes 6 to 9 months. Build both short-term behavioral checkpoints and long-term business outcome measurements into your program design from day one.
What is the ROI of a well-designed leadership development program?
A 2023 BetterManager and Fossicker Group study of 752 organizations found that every $1 invested in a leadership development program returns an average of $7, with a range of $3 to $11. The return comes from increased revenue under better leaders, higher retention, and more strategic decisions about when to grow internal talent versus when to bring in specialized external expertise.
Why do most leadership development programs fail to show business impact?
Most leadership development programs were designed when participation and satisfaction were the primary measures of success. They were not built to develop curiosity, agility, and adaptability, which are the three skills that actually future-proof a leader. DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast found that while nearly 80 percent of HR leaders believe behavior change is the most important success metric, only 18 percent feel confident tracking it.
What is the 70-20-10 model in leadership development?
Originally developed at the Center for Creative Leadership, 70-20-10 suggests that roughly 70 percent of leadership growth comes from on-the-job experience, 20 percent from social learning and mentorship, and 10 percent from formal instruction. The ratios are a guiding principle rather than a validated formula, but the insight is sound. A leadership development program that over-invests in classroom instruction without experiential and social reinforcement rarely produces lasting behavior change.
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