Visibility ≠ Ability
Educational tools are simple. That’s not how you develop leadership. Most organizations put their resources into technical luxury skiing, but the gap between relationship skills and strategic thinking is unaware. It will be expensive to fix these gaps before they emerge. here it is. Not everyone wants to climb a corporate ladder. And it’s not a problem to fix, it’s reality to accept it. So let’s get started with how to actually build leadership development that caters to a wide range of people, roles and situations. Because the old playbook won’t cut it anymore.
Rethinking what leadership looks like
The leadership gap isn’t just about having enough people for management roles. It’s about realizing that influence happens everywhere, and that people who move your business forward may not have or want a director’s title.
It’s time to challenge some assumptions about how to identify, develop and support leadership talent.
Is confidence always comparable to ability?
Be honest: The loudest voice in the room is not always the best leader. Visibility is not equal to ability. People quietly solve problems, mentor their peers, and keep their teams together are often overlooked. Therefore, do not use self-promotion as a shortcut to identify potential leadership. Look for emotional intelligence, team influences, and ability to influence without authority.
EQ is no longer an option
Most leadership programs prioritize hard skills over relational skills. In the AI-first world, relational skills are essential, not “soft.” Last year, Gallup identified four leadership skills that are most important to employees.
Trust in the hopes of compassion stability
Those are the skills to develop. Because when things lie down, it’s your emotionally intelligent people who translate chaos into actions. People who can read the room, adjust their style, or be asked if others are your future leaders, whether they have raised their hands or not.
Leadership without ladders
Most learning and development programs design leadership development around hierarchies. It’s time to build not just for titles, but for influence. Player coach models are everywhere and work.
Almost everyone in your organization can become an effective leader. Find people who will provide results while mentoring others.
Expand your definition of leadership to include actions such as:
Drive innovation and change in mentorship and knowledge sharing for strategic thinking and decision-making cross-function collaboration.
Peer learning builds real functionality
80% of Google’s learning takes place through a peer-to-peer network. However, our upskills report state found that people-based learning is well-utilized and underrated, with over 40% saying they don’t use people-focused learning, and that there is no plan.
When it comes to building strong leaders, most L&D teams arrive at familiar tools, such as courses, workshops, or assessments. But leadership is not something you learn in a vacuum, but something you practice in relationships with others. As such, mentorship stands out as one of the most effective ways to develop leaders.
Think about it: The best leader you’ve worked with probably didn’t come out of your textbooks. They learned through a guided experience. Navigate the challenge, reflect your mentor, and apply new approaches. Research shows that companies investing in relationship-based development have a 53% longer employee tenure and a 79% increase in leadership promotion. It’s not a theory, it’s a transformation of behavior.
When an organization intentionally expands its mentoring using a structured framework, thoughtful mentor matching, and clear goals, they unlock much more locks than individual growth. They will develop a stronger pipeline of ready leaders, cultivate a culture where the core expectations are to reduce turnover and foster others.
When done correctly, people-focused learning adds depth, context and accountability that only content can deliver. Mentoring builds and expands leadership skills in real time. It’s about connections, conversations, and human support, like human support that change potential performance. And those who step up are often your emerging leaders.
Evaluate and develop leadership as well as other skills
Many organizations are stuck because they know leadership issues, but don’t know how to systematically measure or develop them. Leadership is treated like a mystical quality that people have or don’t have, rather than a set of skills that they can observe, evaluate, and build.
It’s time to change that approach to developing and maintaining the next great leader.
Start with clarity, not complexity
Before developing leadership, define what your organization looks like. Specific behaviors that result from leadership books, not general, but rather consequential.
Work with your business to define these behaviors. They know the benefits of extraordinary leadership behavior, what motivates and drives outcomes.
Measure leadership like measuring other things
Use behavioral assessments related to the actual scenarios that leaders face. Get peer and team feedback on impact, collaboration and decision-making. Create leadership simulations or stretch challenges to see how people work under pressure.
bonus? In a technical context, leadership ratings and hard skill ratings can be paired. Some of your best future leaders may be quietly solving problems behind the scenes.
Building leadership through real work (and tracking important things)
Leadership development does not occur in a vacuum. The best leaders must be built through peer learning, sensual mentoring, and project-based roles and influence without authority.
Let me as a Shadow Executive, an emerging leader. Also try reverse mentoring where juniors teach senior leaders about new technology and market trends. Teach coaching that is tied to real-time challenges you are actually facing, rather than hypothetical case studies.
Leaders aren’t perfect for all sizes, and leadership development should not. It expands the definition of what a great leader is and offers the opportunity to give emerging leaders the opportunity to shine. And you will soon start building a strong pipeline of future leaders.
Absorbs LMS
An AI-driven learning management platform for businesses and organizations in all industries that enable, educate, equip and equip employees, customers, partners and members anywhere in the world.
