Let’s face it, leadership development programs are true investments. You have designers who create the programs; trainers who deliver the programs; and people have costs associated with travel to the program. In addition, there are opportunity costs associated with the daily work being postponed while people attend the sessions.

As with any investment, it is important to understand the outcomes you seek and to design your programs around those outcomes. After you identify the desired changes—for example, culture, analytic thinking, or improved global perspective—the design should follow. Identifying the metrics or indicators that will help you determine whether your programs have been effective is a crucial element in your strategy.

For these results to be “real,” I recommend first assessing what you measure today. Only by evaluating the measures you have in place, can you conduct before and after comparisons.

Case in point

At Haworth, we began our development journey by focusing on our leadership culture. At the beginning stages, we worked with the Center for Creative Leadership to leverage its Leadership Gap Assessment to identify competencies required by leaders in the next five years. From that foundation, we developed a series of programs that we refer to as the “Haworth Leadership Institute” (HLI).

We wove several competencies in the HLI program to help us create a solid foundation for our leadership culture. While immediate changes can be observed from the concepts and behaviors that we introduce in the program, it is important for us to know whether there has actually been measurable improvement to the way that we lead.

Leaders are the culture, after al. They really do matter, so we must be able to measure whether our programs have moved the needle.

Where to start?

First, identify what you are measuring today and what indicators can be tracked. For example, a very simple first step for any program is to ensure that attendees complete daily surveys. Not only will it help gage the attendee’s satisfaction, but you can learn a great deal from this input. Properly used, these surveys will enable you to make adjustments to the programming in order to more precisely focus on the intended impact.

For post-program effectiveness analysis, consider using a 360 feedback with the attendees’ teams and managers. Depending on the program, you may want to seek this input 90 to 180 days post-program.

Feedback instruments can be tailored to measure improvement around the specific behavioral competencies that were taught. And depending on the level of attendee, you may want to seek input from the executive team.

• Do you include engagement or satisfaction surveys? Are you reporting the results of these surveys down to the manager level? If so, you could measure any improvements in these indicators over time. A well-performing leader should demonstrate increased engagement among the teams s/he leads, but this takes time.

• Do you measure turnover at the leader/team level? If so, would you expect voluntary turnover to increase or decrease? This is a tricky option, so take caution. If your leadership program is intended to help leaders manage great people up and poor performers out, then the turnover metrics may show these intended outcomes. Don’t presume that turnover is always bad—as some departures are very healthy. 

• Do you track the actual promotions of your employees? If so, then you could look at the promotions or assignments of the leaders who attend the courses, as well as the promotions that resulted from them promoting others.

• How about tenure? Do you expect the employees of these managers to stay longer as the result of having a more effective leader?

You also may want to consider the leader’s success in general? If you conduct formal reviews within your organization, it may be worthwhile to track the ratings for those who attend your courses. Do you expect that their abilities in targeted areas will improve? For example, if your courses focus on the ability to influence, do you have this behavioral competency embedded in your formal reviews? Or, if your development program is geared to building muscle around driving for results, does the review process track the achievement of the assigned goals for their team?

If you are able to collect two or more of these measures, you should consider creating a comprehensive view providing a more complete scoring of the impact of these programs. And, remember, you need to track this over time.

Bottom line

It is important that your leadership development programs are tied to the overarching strategy in place for your corporation’s resources. If the programs are disconnected from the core, then they will quickly become events and will have limited impact.

The design needs to support and be supported by the other programs and processes that exist in your organization. Otherwise you will be hard-pressed to make a sustainable and positive difference. Thus, it is incumbent upon those of us who are privileged to steward these programs to continually test these designs against their intended outcomes and to marry those to the measures that will provide insight to their success.