Why Most Leadership Training is Complete Rubbish (And What Actually Works)

Related Articles:

• Why Leadership Training is Complete Rubbish
• Leadership Skills for Supervisors

Nobody wants to hear this, but I'm going to say it anyway: 87% of leadership training programs are bloody useless.

After spending the better part of two decades dragging myself through corporate boardrooms, small business workshops, and enough "synergy sessions" to make anyone vomit, I've come to one unavoidable conclusion. Most leadership development is just expensive therapy for middle managers who've forgotten how to have a proper conversation with their staff.

Don't get me wrong. I used to be one of those trainers. Back in 2009, I was running three-day leadership retreats where we'd make executives walk across hot coals and trust-fall into each other's arms. Made decent money too. But somewhere between watching a CFO cry over his daddy issues and teaching grown adults how to "actively listen" for the thousandth time, it hit me.

We're solving the wrong problem entirely.

The Real Problem Nobody Talks About

Leadership isn't about emotional intelligence workshops or personality assessments or whatever buzzword consultants are peddling this quarter. It's about something far more basic: most people in leadership positions have never actually led anything meaningful in their lives.

Think about it. Sarah from accounting gets promoted to team leader because she's good with spreadsheets. Dave becomes operations manager because he's been around longest. Neither of them has ever had to make a decision that actually mattered, where real consequences followed real choices.

Then we throw them into a room for two days, show them some slides about "authentic leadership," and expect miracles.

It's like teaching someone to drive by showing them pictures of cars.

The companies that get this right - and I'm thinking specifically of places like Bunnings Warehouse and Flight Centre - they don't waste time on theoretical leadership models. They put people in situations where they have to actually lead, then support them when they stuff it up. Which they will. Because that's how humans learn.

What I Got Wrong (And What Changed My Mind)

Five years ago, I was running a leadership program for a mid-sized manufacturing company in Newcastle. Spent six months developing this comprehensive curriculum covering everything from conflict resolution to strategic thinking. Beautiful PowerPoint presentations. Workbooks with gold binding. The works.

Three months after the program ended, I did a follow-up visit. Nothing had changed. Not one bloody thing.

The team leaders were still avoiding difficult conversations. Department heads were still making decisions in isolation. The MD was still micromanaging everything that moved.

That's when I realised something that should have been obvious from the start: you can't train leadership the same way you train someone to use Excel.

Leadership happens in the moment. In real time. When there's actual pressure and actual stakes.

The Three Things That Actually Work

After years of getting it wrong, I've narrowed it down to three approaches that consistently produce results. Not the feel-good, everyone-gets-a-certificate results. Real, measurable, this-person-is-actually-leading-now results.

First: Put them in charge of something that matters. Not a committee. Not a project team. Something with budget, deadlines, and consequences. I've seen admin assistants turn into genuine leaders when given responsibility for organizing company events with real money on the line. Meanwhile, senior managers with MBAs from Melbourne Uni can't organise a piss-up in a brewery when it's just theoretical exercises.

Second: Make them teach others. Want to know if someone understands leadership? Make them explain it to someone else. The best leadership development program I ever witnessed was at a construction company where foremen had to train new apprentices. Not just the technical stuff - everything. Safety, communication, problem-solving, dealing with difficult clients.

These weren't people with fancy degrees or corporate training backgrounds. But they learned leadership by having to demonstrate it daily to people who depended on them.

Third: Create systematic failure opportunities. This sounds harsh, but it's essential. Real leaders are forged in the crucible of making bad decisions and living with the consequences. We need structured environments where people can fail safely, learn from it, and try again.

One of my clients - a logistics company in Brisbane - started giving new managers deliberately impossible scenarios during their first month. Tight deadlines, insufficient resources, competing priorities. The point wasn't success; it was learning how to communicate under pressure, make tough calls, and recover from mistakes.

The Personality Test Scam

While we're on the topic, can we please stop pretending that personality assessments create leaders?

I've lost count of how many companies waste thousands of dollars getting their staff to fill out questionnaires about whether they're "drivers" or "expressives" or whatever four-quadrant nonsense is popular this year. Then they spend half a day discussing the results as if discovering you're an introvert explains why your team doesn't respect you.

Here's a radical thought: maybe your team doesn't respect you because you make poor decisions, communicate badly, and avoid accountability. Not because you're the wrong colour on some consultant's chart.

Real leadership has nothing to do with personality type and everything to do with competence, consistency, and courage. I've seen quiet, analytical types inspire fierce loyalty from their teams, and I've watched charismatic extroverts destroy company culture within months.

Why Australian Businesses Are Getting This Wrong

There's something particularly Australian about our approach to leadership development that drives me mental. We're simultaneously laid-back about authority and terrified of anyone who actually exercises it effectively.

So we end up with leadership programs that teach people to be "collaborative" and "inclusive" and "emotionally intelligent" - which are all fine qualities - but we never teach them when to make unpopular decisions, how to handle genuine conflict, or what to do when being nice isn't enough.

I remember working with a mining company where the site supervisor was beloved by everyone. Absolute legend. Would give you the shirt off his back. But he couldn't bring himself to discipline workers who were cutting safety corners because he didn't want to hurt their feelings.

Three near-misses later, head office brought in a harder-nosed manager who was less popular but infinitely more effective. The original supervisor is now in HR, where his people skills are actually valuable. Sometimes leadership means being willing to be disliked.

The irony is that Australians actually respond well to clear, direct leadership. We just don't train our leaders to provide it.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Natural Leaders

Here's something that'll make corporate trainers uncomfortable: some people are natural leaders, and others aren't. No amount of training will turn a follower into a leader if they fundamentally lack the instinct for it.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to develop leadership skills in everyone. But it does mean we need to be realistic about what training can and can't accomplish.

The best leadership development programs I've seen focus on identifying people who already show leadership potential - often in informal ways - and then giving them the tools and opportunities to refine those instincts.

What Good Leadership Training Actually Looks Like

When I design leadership programs now - which I rarely do, because most companies aren't ready for what actually works - I focus on three elements:

Real responsibility with genuine consequences. Not role-playing exercises or case studies. Actual projects where failure means something.

Immediate feedback from people who matter. Not 360-degree reviews six months later. Real-time input from the people they're supposed to be leading.

Practical skills that transfer immediately. How to run effective meetings. How to give feedback that changes behaviour. How to make decisions when you don't have complete information.

Everything else is just expensive entertainment.

The companies that understand this - and there are more of them than you might think - consistently outperform their competitors. They have lower turnover, higher engagement, and leaders who actually lead instead of just managing processes.

But they're the exception, not the rule. Most organisations are still stuck in the old paradigm of leadership as a set of soft skills that can be learned in a classroom.

The Bottom Line

Leadership development isn't broken because we're using the wrong methodologies or teaching the wrong concepts. It's broken because we're treating it like any other training program instead of what it actually is: character development under pressure.

If you want to develop leaders in your organisation, stop sending them to workshops and start giving them real authority over outcomes that matter. Support them when they make mistakes, hold them accountable for results, and create an environment where genuine leadership is rewarded over political positioning.

The rest is just window dressing.

And if you're currently sitting through a leadership program where the facilitator uses trust falls or personality assessments, you have my sympathy. Just remember: the real learning starts when you get back to work and have to make decisions that actually count.

Because that's where leaders are really made.