Why Most Leadership Training Is Complete Rubbish (And What Actually Works)

Other Blogs of Interest:

• Workplace Communication Training
• Leadership Skills Development

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I've got a confession: I've wasted more money on leadership training than most people spend on their cars.

Twenty-three years in this game, and I've sat through everything from "synergy workshops" in sterile hotel conference rooms to those cringe-worthy rope climbing exercises where middle-aged accountants pretend they're Navy SEALs. The amount of absolute bollocks masquerading as professional development would make your head spin.

But here's what really gets me fired up – 87% of companies are still throwing good money after bad on leadership programs that wouldn't qualify someone to manage a fish and chip shop, let alone a team of actual humans with mortgages and weekend plans.

The Emperor's New Leadership Course

Walk into any corporate training session in Melbourne or Sydney, and you'll witness the same theatrical performance. Some consultant who's never managed anything more challenging than their LinkedIn profile will stand there with a PowerPoint deck full of buzzwords, teaching "authentic leadership" while reading from a script.

The worst part? Everyone nods along like it's gospel.

I remember sitting in one session where the facilitator – lovely person, I'm sure – spent forty-five minutes explaining how to "leverage synergistic paradigms for optimal team dynamics." The bloke next to me was frantically taking notes. I wanted to shake him and say, "Mate, she just told you to talk to your team members." But no, we all sat there, pretending this verbal diarrhoea was revolutionary thinking.

These cookie-cutter programs treat leadership like it's assembling IKEA furniture. Follow steps A through Z, and voilà – you're Steve Jobs. Except leadership doesn't work that way, and frankly, most of these trainers wouldn't recognise real leadership if it walked up and introduced itself.

What Actually Makes Leaders (Spoiler: It's Not Role-Playing)

Real leadership development happens in the trenches, not in workshops where you're asked to build towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows. Every decent leader I know learned their craft through three things: massive failures, excellent mentors, and genuine curiosity about what makes people tick.

Take Sarah Chen from Atlassian – she didn't become a phenomenal leader because she attended a weekend retreat about "servant leadership." She got there by making spectacular mistakes, learning from them, and surrounding herself with people smarter than her. That's leadership development that actually sticks.

The problem with traditional training is it focuses on techniques instead of mindset. You can teach someone to give feedback using the "sandwich method" (compliment, criticism, compliment), but if they don't genuinely care about their team's growth, it comes across as manipulation. And trust me, employees can smell fake care from three cubicles away.

Here's something that'll ruffle feathers: the best leaders I know are slightly unreasonable. They expect more from people than those people think they can deliver. They're not trying to be everyone's mate – they're trying to help their teams become versions of themselves they didn't know existed.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Leadership Training

Most leadership programs are designed to make participants feel good about themselves rather than actually challenge them to grow. It's like going to the gym and only doing exercises that don't make you sweat.

I've watched executives pay thousands for programs that essentially teach them to say "please" and "thank you" more often. Meanwhile, their teams are crying out for leaders who can make tough decisions, communicate clearly under pressure, and actually understand the business well enough to provide meaningful direction.

The real kicker? These same executives will leave these courses feeling enlightened, implement a few token changes (usually involving more meetings), and wonder why nothing substantially improves. Then they'll book the next course, because clearly they just haven't found the right methodology yet.

But here's what nobody talks about in these sanitised training environments: leadership is messy, personal, and often uncomfortable. It requires you to have difficult conversations, make unpopular decisions, and sometimes admit you don't have all the answers. You can't learn that from a workbook.

What Companies Should Do Instead

Stop sending your managers to generic leadership boot camps and start investing in real development. Pair them with mentors who've actually led teams through genuine challenges. Give them stretch assignments that matter to the business. Let them make mistakes that have real consequences.

Some of the most effective leadership development I've seen happens during crisis management. Nothing teaches you to lead like having to guide a team through redundancies, system failures, or major client losses. These experiences create leaders who can handle ambiguity and make decisions with incomplete information.

Customer service training that puts managers on the front lines dealing with difficult situations often produces better leaders than expensive executive coaching programs. When you've had to calm down an irate customer while your system's crashed and your team's looking to you for answers, suddenly those theoretical leadership scenarios seem pretty tame.

Create internal mentorship programs where your best leaders share real war stories, not sanitised case studies. Let emerging leaders shadow executives during actual decision-making processes. Show them what leadership looks like when the pressure's on and the stakes are real.

The Feedback Revolution (That's Not Actually Revolutionary)

Here's another unpopular opinion: we've overcomplicated feedback to the point of paralysis. Modern leadership training spends hours teaching elaborate feedback frameworks when what most people need to hear is straightforward, timely, and honest.

I once worked with a manager who'd been through three different "crucial conversations" courses. She could recite the methodology perfectly but still took weeks to tell an underperforming team member that their work wasn't meeting standards. All that training, and she was still afraid to have a basic performance conversation.

The best feedback I ever received was from a boss who simply said, "Your presentations are putting people to sleep. Here's what needs to change." No feedback sandwich. No elaborate setup. Just clear, actionable information delivered with genuine intent to help me improve.

Most employees are hungry for honest feedback. They can handle criticism if it comes from a place of wanting them to succeed. What they can't stand is the patronising dance that most leadership training teaches managers to perform.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

Leadership development isn't just about making managers feel more confident in meetings. Done properly, it directly impacts employee engagement, retention, and ultimately, business results. Done poorly, it creates a generation of managers who sound like they swallowed a corporate communications manual.

The companies getting this right – like Canva, Xero, and Woolworths – understand that leadership development is an ongoing process, not a one-off event. They're creating cultures where leadership skills are practiced daily, not just discussed in quarterly workshops.

But most organisations are still stuck in the old model: identify high performers, send them to leadership school, promote them, then wonder why half of them flame out within two years. It's like teaching someone to drive by showing them a PowerPoint about traffic rules, then handing them the keys to a Formula One car.

Real leadership development requires investment in time, resources, and genuine commitment to growing people. It's harder than booking a training course, but the results speak for themselves. Companies with strong internal leadership development programs consistently outperform those relying on external training providers.

And honestly, in today's competitive market, can you afford to keep producing leaders who sound impressive in meetings but crumble when things get challenging? Your competition is probably making the same mistake, so there's a real opportunity for companies willing to take leadership development seriously.

The choice is yours: keep throwing money at feel-good training programs, or start building leaders who can actually lead when it matters most.