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The Impact of Leadership Development Programs
ASTD - American Society for Training and Development, Dec 2010, Pages: 55
Although it is common for organizations to invest in leadership development programs, it is far less likely for organizations to have meaningful insight into how they can measure the programs’ effectiveness and value in areas such as increased employee performance, customer satisfaction, and other success indicators.
ASTD/ICF’s The Impact of Leadership Development Programs report seeks to address this issue by identifying 29 evaluation techniques that “best case” organizations used to link leadership development programs to organizational success metrics, and test the transferability of these techniques to other organizations. This report provides executives and workplace learning and performance professionals with greater insight into techniques that might work for their organization and the value they can potentially drive. Organizations will be able to make informed decisions on how to tailor leadership development programs to address key organizational needs and desired outcomes and be able to determine the true impact of these programs on organizational success.
While it is commonplace for organizations to invest in leadership development programs, it is far less likely for organizations to have meaningful insights into how they can measure the effectiveness and value of these programs in areas such as increased employee performance, customer satisfaction, product quality, corporate profitability, or various indicators of mission success. The genesis for this study was the ASTD research report titled Executive Development: Strategic and Tactical Approaches. The research team for this study, which included ICF International researchers, was surprised to find very little credible information on how organizations were measuring the impact of their executive development programs.
As the study was concluded, the research team recommended that a follow-up study on measurement and evaluation be conducted. ICF International agreed to sponsor and lead this study in partnership with ASTD and graduate students from Pennsylvania State University.
While this follow-on study intended to assess the most effective methods of linking leadership development programs to organizational impact measures, the research team had three specific questions that they sought to address:
- What are the best examples of organizations that are able to measure the impact of leadership development programs?
- What are the specific techniques and the required context that these organizations need to link leadership development content to organizational metrics?
- Can these best practices be transplanted into other organizations, thereby allowing them to assess and improve the outcomes of their leadership development programs?
To answer these questions, the research team used a robust research methodology that included a literature review, a pre-qualification survey, interviews with “best case” companies, a thematic analysis of all qualitative data, and a follow-up survey that gathered broad perspectives on the key findings.
Ultimately this study identified 29 evaluation techniques that “best case” organizations used to link leadership development programs to organizational success metrics. These techniques ranged from practical suggestions to robust approaches for establishing this link, for keeping stakeholders involved, for isolating the effects of the program, and for communicating the results. The research then tested the transferability of these techniques to other organizations by comparing the perceptions of respondents who had used these techniques to those who had not. For those who had used the technique, the study collected their perceptions of how well the technique worked and what types of barriers and enablers they faced. For those respondents who had not used the technique, the study asked them to forecast whether they believe the technique would work and the reasons why it would or would not work.
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