Leadership Development Experiences for Today’s Environment
We’re hearing two resounding themes when we speak with firm and organizational leaders about leadership development:
“Our leaders need new skills to help manage teams in an environment that’s completely different from just a few years ago.”
“We aren’t sure what leadership development should look like now. Can we do something meaningful in a hybrid or remote setting?”
Executives, mid-level managers, and front-line leaders across every industry we serve — professional services, healthcare, corporate, nonprofit — are experimenting with new ways to grow leadership skills and capacities. Here’s what we’re seeing work best as organizations reimagine leadership development in 2025 and beyond:
1. Teach the Skills Leaders Need Now
Even before the pandemic, we were seeing rising burnout, rapid change, a push for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and greater focus on organizational culture. In recent years, the essential skills we’ve helped leaders build include:
Empathy
Values-driven leadership
Flexibility
Experimentation
Creativity
These skills help leaders connect meaningfully with their teams (in-person and remotely), navigate uncertainty, and lead innovation.
2. Build Flexibility Into Programs
Gone are the days of rigid agendas. In the past, we would carefully script every minute of a cohort program to meet specific learning objectives. Today’s learning environment demands more flexibility.
In one of our federal agency programs, we used real-time participant input to adjust our session topics. Burnout emerged early on, so we shifted our third session to focus on empathy and listening. We also provided additional curated resources for self-paced exploration.
Responsive design helps make the experience more relevant and engaging — which, in turn, drives results.
3. Integrate Coaching for Deeper Impact
Coaching creates space for self-reflection, clarity, and growth. Whether through 1:1 sessions or small team coaching, it deepens the impact of learning and offers a personalized complement to group sessions.
In one example, we offered “office hours” for federal leaders, giving individuals time with facilitators to explore their own goals and learning experiments.
In another, we supported growing accounting firms by providing targeted coaching around managing hybrid teams and leading with an entrepreneurial mindset.
4. Use Shorter, More Dynamic Sessions
We’ve learned that 2–3 hours is the sweet spot for virtual learning sessions — and even then, engagement is key.
Instead of long presentations, we now offer bite-sized content via videos, articles, and community posts ahead of time. This allows us to use live time for interaction: breakouts, collaborative whiteboarding, reflection, and connection.
In fact, tech-enabled sessions can often yield more collaboration than in-person settings — when every voice can contribute visibly and simultaneously, the learning multiplies.
5. Use Technology to Build Connection and Culture
When people reflect on impactful leadership development, they talk about the relationships they formed. While we still love in-person connection, we’ve learned that tech can absolutely support rich relationship-building — if you’re intentional about it.
We use platforms like Mighty Networks to help participants create profiles, share reflections, and connect between sessions. We’ve hosted virtual coffees and Zoom breakouts to replicate the informal moments that happen in hallways or over lunch.
Those small-group spaces — whether 1:1 or in breakouts — are where real insight and connection happen, and they’re entirely possible virtually.
Rethinking Leadership Development for Right Now
As leaders face complex demands in a fast-changing world, they need development experiences that are timely, relevant, and adaptable. We believe this is a moment to reinvent leadership development — to make it more connected, experiential, and human.
If you’re thinking about designing or refreshing leadership development in your organization, we’d love to support you. It’s one of our deepest areas of expertise and passion.
You can book a free 30-minute discovery call to explore possibilities and see how we can help.
