Leadership Development Must Leave an Institutional Trail

A public officer completes a respected leadership programme. The closing ceremony is dignified, the certificate is framed and the participant returns with new language about purpose, trust and change. Within days, urgent files reclaim the calendar. The manager has not agreed which new behaviour should be tried. Colleagues do not know why familiar routines may change. The performance system records attendance but not application. A year later, the institution can confirm that training occurred while remaining unable to show what work became different.

This is not principally a failure of motivation. Leadership learning crosses a boundary when it returns to the workplace. The participant needs opportunity, authority, time, peer and managerial response, a real problem on which to practise, evidence from people affected and institutional mechanisms capable of retaining the improvement. A course can support that journey, but it cannot govern the workplace on the participant's behalf.

Leadership development must leave an institutional trail. The trail runs from a verified need to learning, from learning to changed conduct, from conduct to a repeated routine, from routine to team and system capability, and from capability to better service. Where that trail disappears, leaders should narrow the claim rather than calling inspiration impact.

On 3 September, the African Capacity Building Foundation convened a virtual event titled Leading Public Sector Transformation in Africa: Leadership Lessons from the LEAPS…