Why Most Leadership Training is Complete Rubbish and What Actually Works

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The corporate world has convinced us that leadership is something you can learn from a PowerPoint presentation delivered by someone who's never managed anything bigger than their own LinkedIn profile. What absolute nonsense.

After seventeen years of watching companies throw money at leadership consultants like they're feeding coins into a pokies machine, I've seen enough "transformational leadership workshops" to know that 87% of them are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. The real tragedy? Most of these programmes actually make people worse leaders, not better ones.

Here's what nobody wants to admit: authentic leadership can't be taught in a conference room with motivational posters and trust falls.

The Problem with Feel-Good Leadership Theatre

Walk into any corporate leadership seminar and you'll find the same recycled content that's been doing the rounds since the Howard government. Emotional intelligence! Servant leadership! Synergistic paradigm shifts! It's like watching the same bad movie over and over, except this one costs your company $50,000 and comes with branded notebooks.

The facilitators love throwing around buzzwords like "authentic leadership" while delivering the most inauthentic experience imaginable. They'll have you role-playing scenarios that bear no resemblance to actual workplace challenges. When was the last time you needed to lead your team across an imaginary minefield using only pool noodles and positive affirmations?

Real leadership happens in the trenches. It's about making tough decisions when your star performer is having a meltdown, when budgets get slashed overnight, or when you have to tell someone their idea is terrible without crushing their spirit. None of that gets covered in the workbook.

What Actually Creates Leaders (Hint: It's Not PowerPoint)

The best leaders I've encountered learned their craft through three things: failure, mentorship, and genuine responsibility. Not necessarily in that order.

Take Sarah from Melbourne Water – she transformed her entire department not because she attended a leadership retreat in the Blue Mountains, but because she was thrown into the deep end when her manager quit unexpectedly. She had to figure it out. No safety net, no scripted responses, just real problems requiring real solutions.

The uncomfortable truth is that leadership competency develops through repeated exposure to actual leadership challenges. You need to make decisions that matter, face consequences, and learn from your mistakes. Most training programmes shield you from all of that.

I used to think you could shortcut this process. Back in 2018, I spent a fortune sending my entire management team to a three-day intensive in Queensland. Beautiful venue, engaging facilitators, excellent catering. They came back energised and full of new frameworks. Within six weeks, everything had reverted to exactly how it was before. Expensive lesson learned.

The Mentorship Factor Everyone Ignores

Here's something that'll ruffle feathers: the most effective leadership development happens one-on-one with someone who's actually succeeded in your industry. Not a professional trainer who's worked for six different consulting firms, but someone who's built teams, weathered economic downturns, and made payroll during tough times.

Qantas does this brilliantly with their internal mentorship programmes. They pair emerging leaders with seasoned managers who've navigated everything from industrial action to global pandemics. The learning happens through osmosis – watching how experienced leaders handle pressure, make decisions, and communicate during crises.

But most organisations prefer the neat, measurable approach of formal training. It's easier to track attendance than to evaluate the quality of mentoring relationships. Plus, mentorship doesn't come with certificates you can frame or competency matrices you can tick off during performance reviews.

The reality? Your best future leaders are probably already working for you. They just need someone to show them the ropes, not teach them theoretical frameworks.

Why Experience Trumps Education Every Time

Let me share something controversial: I'd rather hire someone who's managed a team through redundancies than someone with an MBA who's never had to deliver bad news to actual humans.

Leadership isn't an academic subject. It's a practical skill that develops through repeated application under real-world conditions. The manager who's successfully guided their team through a major client loss has learned more about leadership in six months than most people absorb from years of workshops.

This doesn't mean education is worthless. But there's a difference between learning about leadership and learning to lead. One happens in classrooms, the other happens when the stakes are real and the pressure is on.

The Australian Way: Straight Talk and Practical Solutions

We Australians have always been suspicious of overcomplicated solutions to simple problems. Leadership development shouldn't require a PhD to understand or a consultant's salary to implement.

The most effective approach I've seen combines three elements: genuine responsibility, regular feedback, and exposure to challenging situations. Give someone a project that matters, check in regularly to provide guidance, and gradually increase the complexity of their challenges.

Companies like Atlassian have built their entire leadership philosophy around this principle. They identify high-potential employees early and give them real responsibility, not just cross-functional project coordination or "stretch assignments" that don't actually stretch anything.

It's about creating opportunities for people to lead, not just learn about leading.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Natural Leaders

Some people are natural leaders, and some aren't. This makes HR departments incredibly uncomfortable because it suggests that not everyone can be developed into executive material with enough training and support.

I've watched organisations spend years trying to develop leadership capabilities in people who fundamentally lack the temperament for it. Meanwhile, natural leaders get overlooked because they don't have the right qualifications or haven't completed the prescribed development pathway.

The best leaders I know share certain characteristics: they're decisive under pressure, they can communicate complex ideas simply, and they genuinely care about their team's success. These aren't skills you can teach through role-playing exercises or 360-degree feedback sessions.

What Works: The Practical Approach

Forget the expensive consultants and overseas retreats. Here's what actually develops leaders:

Give them real problems to solve. Not case studies or hypothetical scenarios, but actual business challenges with genuine consequences. Let them make decisions, even if they're not perfect decisions.

Create opportunities for them to receive honest feedback from people who matter – their team members, peers, and customers. Skip the anonymous surveys and formal appraisals. Schedule regular conversations about what's working and what isn't.

Expose them to different parts of the business so they understand how their decisions impact other departments. The best leaders have worked in sales, operations, and customer service. They understand the business from multiple perspectives.

Most importantly, let them fail occasionally. Nothing teaches leadership quite like recovering from mistakes and learning to do better next time.

The Bottom Line

Leadership development has become an industry unto itself, complete with certification programmes, professional associations, and annual conferences. But somewhere along the way, we forgot that leadership is ultimately about getting things done through other people.

The best leaders I've encountered learned their craft through experience, mentorship, and genuine responsibility. They didn't need workbooks or motivational speakers. They needed opportunities to lead and the support to learn from their mistakes.

Maybe it's time we stopped treating leadership like an academic subject and started treating it like the practical skill it actually is. Your team will thank you for it, and your bottom line probably will too.

After all, when the pressure's on and real decisions need to be made, nobody's going to ask about your leadership training certificates. They're going to look at results.