Most organisations have experienced this at some point. A group of managers attends a leadership programme, the feedback is positive and people come back with ideas they intend to use, yet a few months later the same conversations are being avoided and the same decisions are landing on the same desks.
It is tempting to conclude that the course was poor, or that the leaders weren't committed enough, and either may be part of the explanation. But before spending the budget again, it is worth looking more closely at what people are being asked to change and what makes that change difficult for them.
A leader may already know what they should do
Take a manager who struggles to delegate. They may understand how to agree an outcome, set expectations and give someone responsibility, while the thought of allowing work to leave their hands brings up an uncomfortable feeling that they are losing control. They start checking more often than they intended, making small corrections and eventually doing the work themselves because it feels easier.
Another explanation of delegation is unlikely to resolve all of that. The manager needs to understand what taking control does for them, what they believe might happen if they let go and how those responses affect the people they lead.
We see a similar possibility with difficult conversations. A leader can rehearse the words perfectly in a training room, then spend weeks avoiding the real conversation because they find another person's disappointment or disagreement hard to tolerate. Their team experiences the avoidance, while the leader may be working very hard internally to justify why now isn't the right time.
The habits that helped someone succeed can become part of the difficulty
Being reliable, knowing the detail and solving problems quickly can help someone build a successful career. When they become a leader, those familiar ways of earning approval may continue even though the role now asks them to develop other people's capability.
Through the Paseda360 Pretender Masks Model®, we explore the protective patterns people have learned and what happens when those patterns lead their behaviour. A perfectionist response, for example, can turn a useful attention to quality into an inability to leave someone else's work alone. Understanding the pattern gives the leader something more specific to work with than a general instruction to trust their team.
We then need to bring that awareness into everyday situations. A useful insight has limited organisational value if it stays in the coaching room.
What happens when they return to work?
The organisation has a role here too. A leader encouraged to delegate may return to a senior manager who questions every mistake and expects to be consulted on everything. Someone learning to create space for their team may still have a workload that leaves them rushing from one urgent issue to another.
Development needs enough continuity for leaders to try things, reflect on what happened and work through the difficulty when the familiar response returns. We think about this as an endless quest: people keep learning about themselves as new responsibilities and pressures reveal more of their patterns.
A programme can make a meaningful contribution without leaving someone permanently beyond those challenges.
Before you commission the next programme
Look at a recent situation where the behaviour you wanted did not happen. Explore what the leader knew, what they experienced in the moment and what the organisation was asking of them. That gives you a much clearer brief than simply requesting another course on delegation or communication.
At PasedaLeader, we connect practical leadership development with the deeper work of understanding the person carrying it out. If your leaders have plenty of knowledge but keep getting caught in the same patterns, that is a useful place for us to begin a conversation.
