Why Leadership Development Still Struggles with Learning Transfer—Years Later
I was delighted to receive an email from McKinsey recently with the compelling subject line: “Why Leadership Development Programs Fail.” Naturally, I was excited. I assumed there must be new research, fresh insights, or even a renewed commitment to tackling the well-known challenges of learning transfer.
But as I opened the article, my excitement quickly faded. It turned out to be a reissue of an article originally published in 2014—a decade ago!
McKinsey does label it as “from the archives,” but the fact that they are republishing it now suggests they still believe this problem persists. And they aren’t wrong—leadership development continues to face the same fundamental challenge: how to ensure learning actually results in sustained behaviour change and measurable impact in the workplace.
The Misconception of Learning Projects as the Silver Bullet
Back in 2014, I wrote a powerful response to this McKinsey article. It pushed back on one of the commonly proposed solutions: integrating learning projects as part of development programs. While learning projects can be valuable, they are not the silver bullet for solving the learning transfer problem.
Simply assigning a project doesn’t guarantee application of learning, behaviour change, or business impact— the changes that a person puts into place stays with the project. It doesn’t lead to sustained behaviour change within the learners’ day to day role, especially without structured follow-through, accountability, and ongoing support.
A Client Case Study: A High-Quality Leadership Program Still Lacking Transfer
This conversation isn’t just theoretical. I was in a client meeting last week in which they shared details of a leadership program they had been running successfully for five cohorts. It had all the hallmarks of a robust program:
✅ Great participant feedback
✅ Comprehensive mentoring
✅ Engaging, high-quality learning content
✅ A blended approach of face-to-face and online learning
✅ An embedded project component
✅ Graduation and reporting back on project outcomes
Yet, despite all this effort and investment over five years, the organisation knew it wasn’t creating true learning transfer. That’s why they approached me.
This raises an important question: How can a program designed with so much thought, effort, and structure still fail to deliver learning transfer?
I shared my perspective with them—particularly around projects and how they relate to learning transfer. While projects can seem like a strong link between learning and behaviour change, they often sit outside a participant’s normal day-to-day role. As a result, they don’t necessarily embed new behaviours into the workplace, and learners day to day roles, in a lasting way.
The Shift from Projects to Action Plans
Instead of relying on projects, I suggested swapping them out for action plans tied directly to the participant’s role. This means:
✅ Ensuring commitments are immediately relevant to their real-world responsibilities
✅ Creating action steps that drive actual behaviour change in the flow of work
The client jumped on this idea—they loved the shift from abstract projects to role-based action planning. However, action plans alone are not enough.
The Missing Piece: Self-Reflection for Sustainable Change
Their current strategy involved group discussions at the start of the next module about what participants had applied. While useful, this isn’t enough to drive individual behavioural change.
To move beyond the top 20% of naturally engaged learners and create meaningful impact for the 60% in the middle, we need powerful, structured self-reflection. This ensures that participants aren’t just talking about learning in a group setting but are actively engaging with their own commitments, challenges, and progress. Our Turning Learning into Action™ Methodology™ does just that.
It’s Time to Upgrade Leadership Development for Real Impact
If McKinsey is still flagging this issue a decade later, then surely it’s time for organisations to stop relying on outdated solutions and start embedding real learning transfer strategies into their leadership programs.
If your leadership programs are high-quality but need an upgrade—one that focuses on actual transfer, measurable outcomes, and real behavioural change—let’s talk. We work directly with organisations or partner with Leadership training providers. We also have the data analytics to track and demonstrate impact.
I’d be delighted to help. Drop me a line or contact me, and let’s make leadership development truly transformational.
Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash