How to build a leadership development program that actually works

Most leadership development programs fail quietly. Designed to look great on paper, rarely built to change behavior in practice. Jessica Lane, Director of Enablement and Communications at ScentAir, knows this better than most. She’s built something that works with a “small but mighty” L&D team, a limited budget, and a CEO who’s completely bought-in. This is what she learned about building a leadership development program that actually works.

Why most programs fail before they start

The failure usually happens before a single participant logs in. Programs get built around what’s easy to measure: completion rates, satisfaction scores, hours of content consumed. Not around what actually matters: are people leading differently?

There are three traps most organizations fall into.

1. The first is building an event, not a system. A two-day offsite, a keynote, a workshop. These feel impactful in the moment and produce almost nothing lasting. Leadership development requires sustained exposure, practice, reflection, and application over time.
2. The second is choosing content people don’t respect. If a learner sits down to watch a training video and thinks “is this the best they have?” the program is already over. Content sets the tone for everything that follows.
3. The third is fake executive sponsorship. There is a version of executive support that lives on a slide deck and shows up nowhere else. That kind of support signals to the organization that the program is optional and the program fades.

Step 1: Define the problem before you build

The most common mistake when designing a leadership development program is jumping to curriculum before clearly defining the leadership gap you’re trying to close. Vague problems produce vague programs.

“A CEO’s job is to look ahead,” Brian Edwards, ScentAir’s CEO, said. “What I saw was a need for mid-management to have a bench. We wanted to build the skills and capabilities of those up-and-coming leaders before they were put in the job. Lots of companies talk about that. We actually did it.”

The ScentAir problem statement: Not “we need leadership training” but “we need a pipeline of leaders who are ready before the business requires them.” That distinction shaped every subsequent design decision in ELEVATE Academy.

Ask yourself: where could stronger leadership have the greatest impact on the business? That might show up in retention, team performance, manager feedback, or missed goals. From there, consider who has the greatest leverage in your organization, and whether you are developing leaders for the role they hold today or the one they will need to grow into next.

Step 2: Build a competency framework that belongs to you

Once you know the problem, define what great looks like at your organization. Not generically, and not borrowed from another company’s model.

ScentAir built a seven-competency framework around the acronym ELEVATE. Every letter maps to a distinct leadership capability. Every month, participants explore a different competency through independent learning, group discussion, and enterprise application.

Don’t feel the need to make your framework exhaustive. Even a few competencies can be plenty for a 12-month program, especially if that program includes deep conversations & application opportunities.

Step 3: Design it as a system, not a checklist

The goal of leadership development is to change how people lead, not simply deliver information. Jessica designed ELEVATE as an integrated system built around five core components: measurement and insight, self-paced digital learning, monthly leadership circles, enterprise capstones, and continuous self-reflection.

What made it effective was how each phase built on the one before it. It started with measurement and insight, establishing a baseline for where leaders were and where growth needed to happen. From there, the content created a foundation and introduced the frameworks they would need in practice. The monthly circles gave leaders space to discuss, role-play, and pressure-test those ideas with peers. The capstones moved learning into real business decisions, where teams had to pivot, collaborate, and make choices that influenced the bottom line. Continuous reflection then helped those lessons stick, while ongoing measurement made leadership growth visible over time.

Step 4: Get executive sponsorship that actually means something

There’s a version of executive support that lives on a slide deck and shows up nowhere else. A leader records a two-minute kickoff video, their name gets dropped in the intro, and then the program runs without them. That kind of support tends to signal that the work is optional.

At ScentAir, Brian’s involvement looked very different. He personally selected participants, sent signed invitation letters, opened every session, and stayed involved throughout the year. That level of presence made it clear this wasn’t “just another training program.”

This level of involvement is obviously powerful, but it’s also rare. For most organizations, especially larger ones, expecting the CEO to show up for a 90-minute learning circle every month probably isn’t realistic.

The bigger takeaway is not that the CEO has to be in every room but that leadership presence needs to feel real.

If CEO involvement feels like a stretch, there are other ways to build that same credibility into the program:

• rotate a different C-suite leader into each session
• have senior leaders sponsor capstone challenges tied to real business priorities
• bring final presentations directly to leadership teams for feedback and decisions
• ask executives to personally explain why the program matters to the business

The point is to show people that this work matters outside the room and will influence how the business moves forward.

Step 5: Build visibility into the program by design

One of the most underused levers in leadership development is structured visibility. Deliberately creating moments where participants are seen by senior leaders, and where senior leaders are seen investing in them.

Jessica built this into every stage of ELEVATE. Midpoint capstone presentations to senior leadership. Monthly circles with the CEO present. By program’s end, half of the cohort was presenting at global manager meetings, practicing real communication skills in front of real audiences.

What she observed over 12 months is what she calls earned confidence. The participant quietly wondered if they belonged in the room at the start. That same person, twelve months later, owning a presentation in front of the senior leadership team. “They learned that they could be themselves in those settings,” she said.

The results

• 77% of leaders reported participants demonstrating stronger leadership capabilities than at program start
• 96% of participants report more confidence leading through change 100% of participants reported increased ownership and accountability
• $250K in cost savings form an ELEVATE capstone team’s innovation

When ScentAir measured ELEVATE against the framework Jessica built from day one, here is what they found:

On the business side, one capstone team generated over $250,000 in annual cost avoidance. A second identified more than $1 million in potential savings.

The bottom line

Building a high-impact leadership development program doesn’t require an unlimited budget or a large team. It requires clarity on the problem you’re solving, a framework grounded in your organization’s reality, a system designed for behavior change, and leadership that shows up. ScentAir built ELEVATE with a limited budgeted and lean team. The program is now expanding globally. Half the inaugural cohort stayed on to mentor the next. And a CEO who attends every single circle still sends every new participant a signed letter of invitation.

This article is featured on Big Think.