A strong Leadership Academy requires three strategic choices before the academy is designed – and avoiding three barriers when it is delivered. Here we walk through them, along with the six questions we use with our clients.
What is a Leadership Academy?
A Leadership Academy is a company’s own leadership development programme. It brings leaders together around shared principles, language and capabilities, and it is built around the results the company needs to achieve.
Where a leadership course develops the individual leader, a Leadership Academy develops the whole leadership team in line with the strategy. But an academy is not automatically a good investment. Many academies start with the question “what should the curriculum be?” and end up with a broad, generic programme that is hard to link to the business.
Start with a clear “line of sight”
We recommend starting at the other end: with the strategy. Work backwards – from the change the strategy requires to what leaders need to learn:
We call this connection a “line of sight” between the strategy and the investment in leadership development. It requires making difficult choices and trade-offs – and making them early.
Three strategic choices
1. Which business results do you want to impact?
This is the “why” question. Should the academy help you sustain and strengthen your core business – or develop new business? Often it is a combination. The more precisely you understand the intent behind your strategy, the more precisely you can identify the capabilities you need.
2. Which capabilities drive those results?
Start with employees, not leaders. What do employees need to start, stop or continue doing? Identify the critical encounters between leaders and employees where the strategy is actually executed – and describe what leaders need to master in exactly those situations.
3. Which leaders should be developed?
Which leaders, at which level, sit in the parts of the organisation where development matters most for the strategy? Focus beats flexibility. And everyone who is developed must have the opportunity to apply what they have learned in their day-to-day role.
Six questions that create line of sight
We use these six questions when we help organisations make the three choices. Ask them in order – the answers to the first shape the next.
- 1What is the intent behind our key strategic priorities?
- 2What is required from our employees – in motivation to act, task performance, and adaptability and learning?
- 3What are the critical interactions with employees where our leaders should bring these priorities to life?
- 4Which of these interactions will our leaders have while they take part in the programme?
- 5What do our leaders need to learn to handle those interactions well?
- 6How should we replicate those critical interactions in the programme itself?
Three barriers that dilute the impact
Even a well-designed academy can lose its impact when it is delivered. Many leaders do not apply what they have learned – no matter how capable and motivated they are. In our experience, there are three main barriers.
1. Context gets in the way
The programme is disconnected from leaders’ daily reality. Avoid this by talking systematically to both senior management and employees at several levels before you design the programme. We typically speak to 30 people or more – and the insights often bring surprises.
2. HR owns the initiative
The academy becomes an HR project rather than a business imperative. Involve key leaders in the question “why are we investing?” and let them sign off the objectives and design. Make sure participants’ line managers both pave the way and show the way when the learning is put into practice.
3. No transfer of learning
Leaders do not apply what they have learned in their daily work. Design the programme as close to leaders’ real situations as possible, and use a mix of “push” (such as 360-degree feedback before and after) and “pull” (tools that fit leaders’ own challenges). AI sparring with CLAI can also help leaders prepare for and reflect on critical situations as they arise.
What it looks like in practice
Together with Unifeeder, People & Performance developed Unifeeder Academy – a tailored programme for key employees in operations management and business development. The academy created a shared understanding of the company’s values and operating principles and gave practical tools to lead and develop the business and its people. Read the Unifeeder case (in Danish) →
Free e-book
Want to go deeper?
In the e-book Three Strategic Choices for Leadership Academies, we walk through the three choices and the six questions with real-life examples. You will receive part 2 on the barriers afterwards.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Leadership Academy?
A Leadership Academy is a company’s own leadership development programme that brings leaders together around shared principles, language and capabilities, built around the results the company needs to achieve.
What does “line of sight” mean in leadership development?
“Line of sight” is the clear connection between the company’s strategy, the business results that need to change, and what leaders learn in the academy.
Why does leadership development fail?
Typically because the programme is disconnected from leaders’ daily reality, because it becomes an HR project rather than a business imperative, or because leaders do not apply what they have learned once they are back at work.
How many leaders should take part in a Leadership Academy?
It depends on the strategy. Start with the leaders closest to the employee groups that matter most for the strategy. Focus beats flexibility.
Would you like to talk about how a Leadership Academy can support your strategy? Contact Torben Nørby, CEO & Co-founder, on +45 7927 7290, or read more about our Leadership Academies →