5 ways to make your leadership development program succeed

5 ways to make your leadership development program succeed

From How to Make a Leader by Big Think+

December 11, 2025 · 34 min · Episode 18

About this episode

Lavinia Mehedințu shares five recommendations for improving leadership development programs based on insights from L&D professionals.

Most leadership development programs look good on paper but fall short in practice. Leaders often miss the real support, core skills, and clear metrics they need to succeed. Over the last few months, Lavinia Mehedințu, co-founder of Offbeat, spoke with over 150 L&D professionals to understand what’s working, what’s not, and how people feel about leadership development heading into 2026. In this episode, she breaks down the findings and shares five recommendations for improving your leadership development programs. Her insights focus on what leaders truly need: practical support, clearer measures of success, and more opportunities to learn from one another. You’ll learn: What’s missing from our leadership development programs Program cocreation and the “IKEA effect” The most effective learning modality (hint: it’s peer learning) How to measure leadership performance with confidence Things to listen for: (00:00) Introducing Lavinia Mehedințu (01:17) What 158 L&D professionals revealed about the state of leadership development (03:52) Clear performance metrics: the challenge (07:42) The gaps in how leaders use AI (10:54) Creating systems that support collaboration (13:32)…

People in this episode

Guest: Lavinia Mehedințu

Topics covered

  • leadership development
  • learning modalities
  • peer learning
  • performance metrics
  • collaboration

Keywords

  • leadership
  • development programs
  • peer learning
  • performance metrics
  • collaboration

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Offbeat, L&D

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