Why Leadership Training Fails—and What to Do about It

U.S. corporations spend enormous amounts of money—some $456 billion globally in 2015 alone—on employee training and education, but they aren't getting a good return on their investment. People soon revert to old ways of doing things, and company performance doesn't improve. To fix these problems, senior executives and their HR departments should change the way they think about learning and development, and because context is crucial, needed fixes in organizational design and managerial processes must come first. The authors have identified six common barriers to change: (1) unclear direction on strategy and values, which often leads to conflicting priorities; (2) senior executives who don't work as a team and haven't committed to a new direction or acknowledged necessary changes in their own behavior; (3) a top-down or laissez-faire style by the leader, which prevents honest conversation about problems; (4) a lack of coordination across businesses, functions, or regions due to poor organizational design; (5) inadequate leadership time and attention given to talent issues; and (6) employees' fears of telling the senior team about obstacles to the organization's effectiveness. They advocate six basic steps to overcoming these barriers and achieving greater success in talent development.