Before You Invest in Developing a Leader, Diagnose the Problem

Organizations invest a great deal of money in leadership development.

Executive coaching. Leadership programs. Assessments. Workshops. Mentoring. Stretch assignments.

All can be valuable.

But before deciding which approach to use, there is a more fundamental question worth asking:

What problem are we actually trying to solve?

It sounds obvious. In practice, I'm not sure it happens nearly often enough.

Someone isn't operating strategically enough, so they are assigned an executive coach.

A high performer is preparing for a bigger role, so they are enrolled in a leadership program.

A leader is struggling with their team, so they are sent to management training.

A succession candidate needs to broaden their capabilities, so they are given a stretch assignment.

Perhaps those are exactly the right supports.

But perhaps not.

Because "this person needs development" is not actually a diagnosis.

Different problems require different responses

Sometimes a leader genuinely lacks a skill.

They've never managed a large team, led through significant change, presented to a board or operated with responsibility for a P&L. There may be knowledge they need to acquire or capabilities they need to practise.

Training, mentoring or targeted experience may be exactly what is required.

But sometimes the problem isn't skill at all.

Perhaps the leader knows perfectly well how to delegate, but continues to hold onto work because being the person with the answers has become important to their identity.

Perhaps they understand how to give feedback, but avoid difficult conversations because they are deeply uncomfortable with conflict.

Perhaps they are being told to "be more strategic," when the real challenge is learning to make decisions amid greater complexity, competing interests and incomplete information.

Perhaps their performance has declined because the role has changed around them, and the capabilities that made them successful three years ago are no longer sufficient.

Perhaps they don't actually want the bigger role everyone is busily preparing them to assume.

And sometimes the issue isn't primarily with the leader at all.

The accountabilities are unclear. Incentives are competing. Their boss is undermining their authority. The executive team hasn't made a decision everyone downstream is somehow expected to execute. The organizational structure makes the desired behaviour extraordinarily difficult.

None of these situations is likely to be solved simply by sending someone to the right program.

Start with diagnosis, not prescription

One of the risks in leadership development is that organizations become attached to programs and providers.

We have a leadership program, so we look for people to put into it.

We have coaching budget, so we identify people who could use a coach.

We have a competency model, so we assess people against it and work on the gaps.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. The problem comes when the available solution begins to shape our understanding of the problem.

A more useful starting point is curiosity.

What are we seeing that tells us something needs to change?

Not the label we've attached to it. The evidence.

What is this leader doing or not doing? In which situations? With whom? How consistently? What has changed in the role or environment? What have they already tried? What do they understand about the issue themselves? What might be getting in the way?

And perhaps most importantly:

What would need to be different for us to know the problem had actually been solved?

That question forces greater precision.

"More strategic" is difficult to develop against.

"We need her to anticipate implications beyond her own function and incorporate them into her decisions" gives us considerably more to work with.

"He needs executive presence" tells us very little.

"We need him to express a point of view in senior-level discussions even when he doesn't have complete information" tells us something.

The better the diagnosis, the better the chances of choosing a resource that actually solves the problem.

Sometimes coaching is the answer

As an executive coach, I obviously believe coaching can be an extraordinarily powerful development approach.

I also believe part of responsible coaching is recognizing when it isn't the answer.

If someone needs knowledge, teach them.

If they need exposure, create it.

If they need experience, find a way for them to get it.

If they need candid performance feedback, give it to them.

If the system is creating the problem, work on the system.

If they don't want the role, have that conversation.

And if the challenge involves how a leader thinks, interprets, chooses, relates, adapts or operates at a new level of complexity, coaching may well be an excellent investment.

The point isn't to choose coaching less often.

It's to choose development modalities more intentionally.

Better development starts before the development begins

Organizations understandably want leadership development investments to produce results.

That conversation often focuses on the end: Did the person change? Did the program work? Was the coaching successful?

Those are important questions.

But the quality of the outcome depends in part on something that happened much earlier.

Did we understand what needed to change in the first place?

Before choosing the coach, booking the program or approving the development plan, spend a little longer with the problem.

Look at the leader. Look at the role. Look at the environment around them. Look at the evidence rather than the shorthand description of what's wrong.

Then decide what kind of development, if any, the situation actually calls for.

Because the most sophisticated development program in the world can't solve a problem we've misunderstood.