How to develop leaders in your organization: a practical, evidence-based guide

To develop leaders, pick people who already show leadership behavior, agree on one or two capabilities they need for a bigger role, and give them real work that requires those capabilities. Then stay close: give feedback, ask coaching questions, connect them with a mentor, and debrief each experience before the next one. Track who is ready for which role with succession planning software or a simple spreadsheet, but remember that the tracking is the easy part. The development happens in the work and the conversations around it.

This guide is written for the manager who has to grow people on their own team, and for the HR or L&D lead who has to make it happen across teams. It covers how to spot potential, how to size a stretch assignment, what to say, how to write a plan, and how to tell whether it is working. If you want to know which qualities you are developing toward, start with what makes a good leader.

Leadership development has a reputation for expensive programs that change little. The research is more encouraging than the reputation. A 2017 meta-analysis of 335 independent samples found leadership training substantially more effective than previously thought, with gains in learning, transfer to the job and business results. The catch is in the last clause: the size of the effect depends on how the training is designed and delivered.

The same analysis points to what separates good programs from weak ones: a needs analysis first, feedback, several delivery methods with practice above all, sessions spread over time, and face-to-face delivery that is not self-administered. Industry data lines up with it. In DDI's 2025 survey, online learning libraries were the most widely used method and had the lowest return rating of any development method. A content library on its own is not a development program.

Three other problems show up again and again:

• The wrong people get promoted. Economists studying sales workers at 214 firms found evidence of the Peter Principle: firms promote on current performance at the expense of traits that better predict managerial performance.
• New managers are left to work it out. Gallup finds that less than half of managers worldwide have received management training, and the ones who have are less likely to be actively disengaged.
• Feedback is rare. Gallup research finds that 47% of employees received feedback from their manager a few times or less in the past year. People cannot grow as leaders without knowing how their leading lands.

The result is a thin bench. DDI's 2025 HR Insights Report found that on average only about half (49%) of critical leadership roles could be filled immediately by an internal candidate.

The six steps below turn the research into a routine a manager can run every quarter. Each experience ends in a debrief, and the debrief decides the size of the next stretch.

1. Spot potential

Look for leadership behavior people already show without the title: others ask them for help, they pull a stuck group forward, they explain decisions well, they take ownership of problems outside their own task. Judge this separately from how good they are at their current job. A top performer may or may not want to lead, and the best leaders on a team are sometimes solid rather than star performers.

2. Agree a one-page plan

Ask what role the person wants next and what that role demands that their current one does not. Pick one or two capabilities, not ten. A plan with one clear focus gets practiced; a list of twelve competencies gets filed. The plan section below gives the fields.

3. Give a right-sized stretch

Real leadership work teaches more than a course about it, but the dose matters. A study of 225 on-the-job experiences across 60 managers found that the link between how challenging an experience is and how much leadership skill people develop shows diminishing returns. Past a point, more challenge adds stress faster than it adds learning.

A good stretch has a clear scope, a deadline, real consequences and a safety net: the person knows who to call when they are stuck, and you agree in advance what you will step in on. Start with work that is visible but recoverable, such as leading a project phase, running the weekly team meeting, onboarding a new hire or owning a cross-team fix.

4. Give feedback and coach while the work is under way

The same study found that access to feedback offset the diminishing returns of very challenging experiences. In other words, the harder the stretch, the more feedback it needs. Watch the person lead at least once, give specific feedback within a day or two, and ask questions more than you give answers. Our guide to giving feedback covers how to make it specific and usable.

Coaching from a trained coach adds to this. A meta-analysis of workplace coaching by internal or external coaches found positive effects on skills, attitudes and individual results. Managers are not professional coaches, but they can borrow the habit: ask what the person is trying to achieve, what they have tried, and what they will do next.

5. Debrief and reflect

Most of the learning from an experience is lost if nobody stops to examine it. A meta-analysis of 46 samples found that debriefs improved effectiveness by about 25% on average compared with control groups. A debrief takes twenty minutes and four questions: What did we set out to do? What happened? Why? What will you do differently next time?

6. Sponsor and widen the scope

When someone handles a stretch well, make it visible. Mention the result to your own manager and to peers, put the person forward for the next opportunity, and give them a slightly larger scope. Sponsorship is a different job from mentoring: a mentor gives advice, a sponsor uses their own standing to open doors. Emerging leaders need both, and many never get the second unless a manager offers it.

Not every experience teaches the same lesson. CCL's research across China, India, Singapore and the U.S. found five sources of leadership learning that matter everywhere: bosses and superiors, turnarounds, increases in job scope, horizontal moves and new initiatives. Match the experience to the gap.

You will often hear this summarized as the 70-20-10 rule. CCL describes it as people learning 70% from challenging experiences and assignments, 20% from developmental relationships and 10% from coursework. Use it as a reminder to weight experience heavily, not as a budget formula. A 2018 review in Human Resource Development Review found the evidence for the 70% share weak and warned that policies relying on it are likely to be misleading. Experience left to chance does not develop anyone; it has to be chosen, supported and reviewed.

A leadership development plan is a short agreement between the person, their manager and, where there is one, a mentor. Keep it to one page and review it in your regular one-on-one meetings.

The fields:

1. Target role and time frame. "Lead the customer support team" or "first people-manager role", with a realistic horizon.
2. Strengths to build on. Two strengths the person already shows as a leader.
3. One or two focus capabilities. Written as behavior: "set clear expectations and follow up", not "communication".
4. Experiences. One stretch assignment for this quarter, with scope, deadline and safety net.
5. Relationships. A mentor, a peer to learn from, and who gives feedback on the stretch.
6. Learning. Any course or reading that supports the focus, scheduled before or during the stretch.
7. Evidence of progress. What you would see if the capability improved, and who would see it.
8. Review dates. A monthly check-in and a quarterly debrief.

A generic example: a senior analyst wants to lead a team. Strengths: explains complex work clearly; trusted by peers. Focus: delegate work and hold people to deadlines without doing it themselves. Stretch: lead the next quarterly reporting cycle with two colleagues. Relationships: a mentor who leads another team; the manager observes one planning meeting. Learning: a short delegation course with practice. Evidence: colleagues finish their parts on time without the analyst redoing them. Review: monthly, and a debrief after the cycle closes.

Many organizations keep these plans inside a talent review, often using a nine-box grid to compare performance and potential. The grid is a conversation aid; the plan is what changes behavior.

The move from individual contributor to manager is the transition where most leadership development is needed and least is offered. The skills that earned the promotion, such as being the fastest or most expert person, are not the skills the new job rewards. The same pattern repeats, with different content, at every later step.

For a new manager's first 90 days, focus on four things: a one-on-one with each person in the first two weeks, a clear statement of expectations and how decisions will be made, one early decision explained openly, and a weekly hour with their own manager or mentor. Promotions from within the team need one extra step: name the change of relationship directly. "Last month we were peers. My job now includes giving you feedback and making some calls you won't like. I want to keep our working relationship good, so tell me if I get it wrong."

New managers also have to win support from peers they used to work beside and from other teams they cannot direct; influence without authority covers that shift. Self-awareness matters most here, because new managers often misread how they come across. Emotional intelligence in leadership covers how to build it.

The best time to start developing leaders is before they have a title. Emerging leaders, including people early in their careers, can practice most leadership skills in roles they already hold:

• Running a recurring meeting or a project phase.
• Onboarding and buddying new hires.
• Leading a process improvement or a cross-team fix.
• Presenting the team's work to senior leaders.
• Teaching a skill to the team.

Volunteering is another route, inside work or outside it. In Deloitte's 2016 survey of employed people who influence hiring, 92% agreed volunteering is an effective way to improve leadership skills, and 80% said active volunteers move more easily into leadership roles. Those are opinions rather than measured outcomes, but the logic holds: chairing a nonprofit committee or running a community event is real practice at influence without authority.

Teachable moments are the cheapest development tool a manager has. Use them when someone has made a mistake, is about to do something for the first time, has just pulled off something hard, is stuck on a decision, or has received feedback they disagree with. Ask a question first: "What did you notice?" Then add what you saw.

Small changes in wording shift a conversation from evaluation to growth.

Most organizations combine the two. The choice depends on what you need.

Delivery format matters less than design. The coaching meta-analysis found no difference in effect between face-to-face, blended and e-coaching, or between shorter and longer engagements. Before buying a program, check that it includes practice, feedback and follow-up, not only content.

If you run a cohort program for emerging leaders, anchor it to one business priority, group participants by level, and ask senior leaders to teach a session or sponsor a real project. Judge it by behavior, not attendance: Harvard Business Publishing recommends a follow-up survey two or three months after the learning experience to assess its impact on behavior, and the most useful respondents are the participants' own managers.

Many people become leaders without formal training. If you are one of them, run the same cycle on yourself.

A 30-day self-development plan:

• Week 1: Ask three colleagues one question each: "What is one thing I could do to be more useful to the team?" Write down the patterns.
• Week 2: Pick one leadership behavior to practice, such as running a tighter meeting or giving clearer requests. Find two chances to practice it this week.
• Week 3: Ask someone you respect to be your mentor for one conversation a month. Be specific about what you want to learn. Mentoring research shows mostly modest but positive career benefits for protégés.
• Week 4: Debrief yourself in writing: what you tried, what happened, what you will change. Then pick the next behavior.

Build a small network of mentors rather than relying on one: a peer a step ahead, someone in a different function, and someone outside the organization. Different people teach different lessons.

Five shifts are changing how organizations develop leaders:

• Development in the flow of work. Programs are moving from off-site courses to experiences, coaching and practice tied to the job.
• Proof through behavior change. HR teams in DDI's 2025 report named measuring success as their biggest challenge, and 78% look to behavior change as their preferred proof.
• Leadership earlier in careers. With flatter structures and thin benches, organizations are developing people before they become managers.
• Remote and hybrid delivery. Coaching can work across formats, but training still benefits from live practice and feedback rather than self-paced content alone, as the training meta-analysis found.
• Managers as developers. Development is becoming part of every manager's job rather than an HR program people are sent to.

Course completions show activity, not development. Measure at three levels:

Behavior. Before and after a development cycle, ask the person's team and peers three to five questions about the focus behavior, such as "My manager sets clear expectations" or "My manager follows up on commitments." Compare the same questions over time.

Readiness. For each critical role, count how many internal candidates are ready now, ready in one to two years, or not yet ready. Track the share of roles with at least one ready-now successor each quarter.

Outcomes. Watch how internal promotions perform in their first year, whether developed leaders stay, and how engaged their teams are.

Cadence: monthly plan check-ins in one-on-ones, a quarterly debrief and readiness update, and a yearly look at outcomes.

• Promoting the best individual contributor by default. Judge leadership behavior separately.
• Sending people on a course and calling it development. Courses support experience; they do not replace it.
• Stretching too far with no support. Big assignments without feedback teach less, not more.
• Too many focus areas. One or two capabilities at a time get practiced.
• Skipping the debrief. The lesson is lost if nobody stops to examine what happened.
• Development only for a chosen few. Leadership practice can start in any role.
• Measuring attendance. Look for changed behavior and ready successors.