How to build a leadership
development program that works.
Not another off-the-shelf curriculum. Not another keynote series disguised as development. Here's how to build a program that changes how your leaders actually operate, from needs assessment through measurement.
Before you build anything.
Most leadership development programs fail before they launch. Not because of bad content or weak facilitation, but because they were built to solve the wrong problem. Someone in the C-suite says “we need leadership development,” HR puts together a program, and six months later nobody can explain what changed.
The programs that actually work start with a different question. Not “what leadership content should we deliver?” but “what is happening in our organization right now that better leadership would fix?” That shift from content-first to problem-first is the single biggest predictor of whether a program will produce results or just produce attendance.
A second principle: leadership development is not an event. It's a system. A two-day offsite can generate energy and alignment, but it can't change behavior. Behavior changes through sustained practice, feedback, and accountability over months. If your “program” is a collection of events with no connective tissue between them, you've built a calendar, not a development system.
A program is not a calendar of events. It's a system that produces behavior change over time.
Start with what's actually broken.
A real needs assessment isn't a survey with five Likert-scale questions. It's a diagnostic process that identifies specific capability gaps that are causing specific business problems. The output should be precise enough that you can point to it and say: “This is what we're fixing, and here's how we'll know it's fixed.”
Talk to the right people
Don't just ask executives what they think leaders need. They'll give you generic answers like “better communication” and “strategic thinking.” Instead, triangulate across three sources: senior leaders (what do they see from above?), the leaders themselves (where are they struggling?), and their teams (what's the experience of being led by these people?). The gaps between these three perspectives are where the real development needs live.
Look at the data you already have
Before you collect new data, mine what exists. Engagement survey results (which questions score lowest? Do scores vary by manager?). Exit interview themes (why are people leaving, and is leadership cited?). Performance review patterns (where do managers consistently struggle?). Promotion failure rates (are newly-promoted leaders succeeding or floundering?). This data already tells a story. Most organizations have never read it holistically.
Translate needs into development goals
“Our managers need to be better at communication” is not a development goal. “Our managers need to deliver clear, direct feedback in a way that motivates rather than demoralizes” is. The more specific your goals, the more clearly you can design programming and the more precisely you can measure outcomes.
The specificity test: If you can't describe what “success” looks like in behavioral terms, your goal isn't specific enough. “Better strategic thinking” fails this test. “Leaders who can articulate their team's priorities in the context of company strategy, make trade-off decisions without escalating everything, and allocate resources based on impact rather than urgency” passes it.
Define your audiences.
One program for all leaders is almost always a mistake. A first-time manager and a VP face fundamentally different challenges. Putting them in the same room with the same content means neither gets what they need. The first-time manager drowns in strategic frameworks they can't yet apply. The VP is bored by basics they mastered years ago.
Segment your leadership population by the challenges they face, not just by title or tenure. Here's a framework that works for most organizations:
New to leadership
First-time managers, newly promoted team leads, ICs taking on people responsibilities for the first time.
Key needs: Feedback delivery, delegation, running effective 1:1s, managing former peers, shifting from "doing" to "enabling." The fundamentals.
Experienced managers
Managers with 2-5 years of experience leading teams. They have the basics but hit a plateau.
Key needs: Coaching their own direct reports, managing performance at both ends (underperformers and top talent), cross-functional influence, building team culture deliberately.
Senior leaders
Directors, VPs, and functional heads leading other managers. Strategy and organizational complexity define their role.
Key needs: Organizational design, executive communication, leading through ambiguity, board and C-suite presence, managing up and across, building leadership bench strength.
Executives
C-suite and senior-most leaders accountable for enterprise outcomes.
Key needs: Enterprise strategy, stakeholder management, public presence, culture stewardship, succession planning. Often lonely at the top and need confidential thinking partners.
You don't need to launch programs for every audience simultaneously. Start with the segment where the need is most acute and the business impact is most visible. For most organizations, that's new managers or the senior leader tier.
Choose your modalities.
Different development goals require different delivery methods. The mistake is picking a modality first (usually “let's do a workshop”) and then fitting your goals into it. Instead, match the modality to what you're trying to develop.
| Modality | Best for | Limitations |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 coaching | Individual behavior change, personalized skill building, working through real situations in real time | Cost per person is higher. Requires quality coaches and good matching. |
| Group coaching / cohorts | Shared learning, peer accountability, building a common leadership language across a cohort | Individual attention is limited. Pacing must accommodate different skill levels. |
| Workshops | Introducing frameworks, building shared vocabulary, practicing skills in a safe environment | Retention drops sharply without follow-up. Behavior change requires more than a single session. |
| Mentoring | Career navigation, organizational knowledge transfer, cross-functional relationship building | Hard to scale. Quality depends entirely on mentor availability and skill. |
| Self-directed learning | Knowledge acquisition, foundational concepts, individual exploration of topics | Low completion rates. Zero accountability. Doesn't change behavior on its own. |
| On-the-job assignments | Applying skills in real contexts, stretch experiences, learning by doing | Requires intentional design and support. Without coaching alongside, people learn bad habits as often as good ones. |
The strongest programs layer modalities together. A cohort workshop introduces the framework. 1:1 coaching helps each leader apply it to their specific context. Peer accountability groups maintain momentum between coaching sessions. On-the-job assignments create practice opportunities. Each modality reinforces the others.
The integration principle: A program with three connected modalities outperforms a program with five disconnected ones. It's not about how many things you offer. It's about how well they reinforce each other. If your coaching doesn't reference your workshop content, and your workshops don't build on coaching themes, you have parallel programs, not an integrated system.
Build a competency framework.
A competency framework is the backbone of your program. It defines what “good leadership” looks like in your organization, broken into specific, observable capabilities. Without it, development is directionless. Coaches don't know what to develop. Participants don't know what success looks like. L&D can't measure whether the program is working.
Keep it lean
The biggest mistake in competency framework design is making it too comprehensive. A 30-competency model is academically thorough and practically useless. Nobody can develop 30 things at once. Aim for 6-10 core competencies that differentiate great leaders from average ones in your specific context. If every company's framework looks the same, it's too generic to be useful.
Make it behavioral
“Strategic thinking” is a competency. “Identifies trade-offs between competing priorities and makes resource allocation decisions based on strategic impact rather than urgency” is a behavior. Competencies should be described in terms of what someone actually does, not what they abstractly possess. Behavioral descriptions make coaching more targeted, feedback more specific, and measurement more rigorous.
Differentiate by level
“Communication” means different things for a new manager and a VP. For the new manager, it means delivering clear feedback in a 1:1 setting. For the VP, it means aligning a 200-person organization around a strategic narrative. Your competency framework should describe what each competency looks like at each leadership level. This is what makes the framework genuinely useful for development conversations rather than a poster on the wall nobody reads.
Example: “Feedback Delivery” across levels
Delivers timely, specific feedback to direct reports in 1:1 settings. Balances positive recognition with constructive input. Follows up on development conversations.
Creates a team culture where feedback flows in all directions. Coaches direct reports to give better feedback to each other. Addresses performance issues directly rather than avoiding them.
Models feedback transparency at the organizational level. Builds systems that institutionalize feedback (skip-levels, 360s, retrospectives). Ensures managers across the organization are equipped and held accountable for feedback quality.
Design the architecture.
This is where you connect everything: audiences, modalities, competencies, and timelines into a coherent program structure. The architecture determines what each audience experiences, in what sequence, and how the pieces connect.
Think in journeys, not events
A new manager shouldn't experience “a workshop in March and coaching starting whenever.” They should experience: an onboarding assessment that identifies their top development priorities, matched with a coach within the first month of their transition, enrolled in a cohort program with other new managers for peer learning, with monthly touchpoints that connect coaching themes to cohort content. Each piece builds on the last.
Build in progression
The program should evolve as the leader grows. Month one might focus on the basics of delegation and feedback. Month three shifts to team dynamics and performance management. Month six introduces cross-functional influence and upward management. This progression keeps the program relevant as leaders develop and prevents the “I already know this” disengagement that kills flat programs.
Create connective tissue
Between every touchpoint, something should be happening. Reflection prompts after a workshop. A coaching session that processes what came up in the cohort. A peer conversation that applies a framework from coaching to a real situation. The moments between formal touchpoints are where most of the development actually occurs. Design for them.
Sample: New Manager Program (6 months)
Needs assessment, coach matching, first coaching session, manager orientation workshop
Biweekly coaching (feedback & delegation focus), cohort session #1: The Manager Shift
Biweekly coaching (performance conversations), cohort session #2: Difficult Conversations
Biweekly coaching (team dynamics), cohort session #3: Building Your Team Culture
Biweekly coaching (upward management), cohort session #4: Managing Up and Across
Final coaching session, competency reassessment, cohort capstone: Your Leadership Identity
Buy, build, or blend.
At this point you have a clear picture of what you need. Now: do you build it internally, buy it from a vendor, or combine both? There's no universally right answer. It depends on your internal capability, budget, timeline, and how specialized your needs are.
Build internally
Best when you have strong internal L&D capability, highly specific cultural context that external vendors can't replicate, and senior leaders willing to facilitate.
Risk: slower to launch, dependent on internal bandwidth, hard to scale coaching.
Buy from a vendor
Best when you need to move fast, don't have internal coaching capacity, want external expertise and measurement infrastructure, or need to scale across hundreds of leaders.
Risk: less customization, potential cultural mismatch, vendor dependency.
Blend both
Best when you want internal ownership of strategy and culture, but need external capacity for coaching delivery, measurement, and scaling. Most organizations land here.
Risk: coordination complexity. The internal and external pieces need to actually talk to each other.
Most organizations that are serious about leadership development end up blending. They own the strategy, the competency framework, and the cultural context. They bring in external partners for coaching delivery, measurement infrastructure, and the kind of scalable programming that internal teams can't build and maintain alone.
Launch without the chaos.
Program launches fail for predictable reasons: unclear communication about what the program is and isn't, participants who don't understand what's expected, managers who aren't bought in, and logistics that create friction. Here's how to avoid each one.
Get executive sponsorship that's visible
Not a one-time email from the CHRO. Visible, ongoing sponsorship where a senior leader talks about why this matters, shares their own development story, and checks in on progress. When the CEO says “I have a coach and it's made me better,” the stigma around coaching disappears overnight.
Brief managers before participants
The participant's direct manager is either the program's biggest ally or its biggest obstacle. If the manager doesn't understand the program, doesn't support it, or subtly signals that it's a waste of time, participation will be hollow. Brief managers first. Explain what the program is, what their role is (supportive, not intrusive), and how they'll see development show up in their team.
Start with a pilot
Don't launch to 500 people on day one. Run a 30-50 person pilot with a cohort that's engaged and representative. Use the pilot to work out logistics, test your measurement approach, collect early stories of impact, and build internal champions who'll evangelize the program when you scale.
Remove friction from the participant experience
If scheduling a coaching session requires three emails and a calendar circus, people won't do it. If joining a cohort session means navigating a confusing platform, energy drops before the session starts. The operational experience matters as much as the content. Make it seamless.
Measure what matters.
We wrote an entire guide on measuring coaching ROI, so we won't repeat all of it here. But here's the summary that applies to your overall program:
Build measurement into the program design from day one, not as an afterthought. Track three layers: leading indicators (are people engaged and applying what they're learning?), competency growth (are specific capabilities improving over time?), and business outcomes (is the organization seeing results?). Each layer answers a different question and gives you something credible to report at every stage.
The single most important design choice: create a comparison group. Even an imperfect one. “Coached managers' teams retained 15% more top performers than the company average” is the kind of sentence that protects a budget.
The traps that kill programs.
The event trap
You schedule a great offsite. People are energized. They go back to their desks and nothing changes. Three months later, the offsite is a memory. Events create energy, not change. If your program is a series of events with nothing in between, you're spending money on enthusiasm that evaporates.
The content trap
You build a beautiful library of leadership content: courses, videos, articles, assessments. Completion rates hover around 15%. The people who need it most never engage. Content is necessary but not sufficient. Without coaching, accountability, and application support, content is just information that sits unused.
The top-only trap
You invest heavily in executive coaching and ignore everyone else. Your VPs are developing beautifully. Meanwhile, the managers who interact with 80% of your workforce every day are struggling without support. The highest-leverage investment in most organizations is at the manager level, not the executive level.
The vendor fragmentation trap
You use one vendor for coaching, another for workshops, a third for assessments, and a fourth for content. None of them talk to each other. Your L&D team spends half their time coordinating vendors instead of designing development. And you can't measure anything holistically because the data lives in five different systems.
The one-and-done trap
Someone completes the six-month program and is "graduated." Development stops. But leadership is not a credential you earn once. The best leaders continue developing throughout their careers. Design for ongoing growth, not a finish line.
One system. Every level.
Boon replaces the fragmented vendor stack with one platform that covers coaching, manager development, executive support, and team programming. Matched coaches. Built-in measurement. No coordination tax.
Book a Strategy CallSee how the products connect →How Boon fits into your program.
Boon isn't trying to replace your entire leadership development strategy. We're the coaching and development infrastructure that makes it work. Here's how each product maps to the program architecture we've described in this guide:
The coaching layer. Matched coaches for every leader in your program, from new managers to senior leaders. Competency-mapped, confidential, and measurable. This is the sustained practice and accountability that workshops alone can't provide.
The cohort layer. Group coaching and facilitated development for manager cohorts. Builds shared leadership language, peer accountability, and collective skill development. The peer learning that makes individual coaching even more effective.
The executive layer. Senior-level coaching with coaches who've operated at the executive level. Confidential, high-touch, and designed for the complexity that comes with leading at scale.
The team layer. Facilitated team sessions for alignment, communication, and collaborative skill building. The connective tissue between individual development and team performance.
What makes this different from assembling four separate vendors: all four products share one platform, one coaching network, one competency framework, and one measurement system. Your L&D team sees the whole picture in one place. Leaders experience a connected development journey, not a disjointed collection of programs.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to build a leadership development program?
A thoughtful needs assessment takes 4-6 weeks. Program design takes another 4-8 weeks depending on complexity. A pilot can launch 2-3 months after design is complete. Full-scale rollout typically happens 6-9 months from the decision to build. Trying to compress this timeline usually means skipping the needs assessment, which is the most important step.
How much should we budget for leadership development?
Industry benchmarks suggest 3-5% of payroll for overall L&D, with leadership development being the largest single category. For coaching specifically, expect $3,000-$8,000 per leader per year depending on seniority and session frequency. The more useful question is: what is the cost of not developing your leaders? Calculate the turnover, disengagement, and productivity costs, and the investment usually looks modest by comparison.
Should we start with new managers or senior leaders?
Start where the pain is sharpest and the business impact is most visible. For most organizations, that's new managers because the transition failure rate is high and the downstream impact on team engagement and retention is enormous. But if your senior leadership team is misaligned or struggling with a major transformation, starting there might be the right call.
How do we get buy-in from leaders who think they don't need development?
Position coaching as a performance accelerator, not a remediation tool. Share examples of high-performing leaders (athletes, executives, public figures) who use coaches to get better, not to fix problems. Peer influence is powerful: when respected leaders in the organization talk about coaching positively, resistance drops. And make participation easy. Friction kills adoption faster than skepticism does.
Can we build an effective program with a small L&D team?
Yes, if you're strategic about what you build internally versus what you buy. A small team should own strategy, needs assessment, and stakeholder management. Bring in external partners for coaching delivery, content development, and measurement infrastructure. The worst thing a small team can do is try to do everything themselves. You'll burn out before you build anything sustainable.
How do we know when our program needs to evolve?
Three signals: engagement is declining (people are going through the motions), the business context has changed (new strategy, reorg, acquisition) and the program hasn't adapted, or measurement shows diminishing returns (early cohorts saw strong results but recent ones are flat). Programs should be reviewed and refreshed at least annually.
Build a program that compounds.
110+ enterprise customers. Four connected products. Coaching, manager development, executive support, and team programming in one system.
Book a Strategy CallRead the complete leadership development guide →