CASE STUDY: Why the Most Powerful Leadership Development Happens Between Sessions

A case study on peer connection, identity, and what actually drives change

For over 25 years, I have worked with organizations to build their leadership development programs. Over time, patterns became visible. Organizations would convene committees, debate competencies by level and role, select a framework, and assemble a set of topics. Workshops were scheduled, certificates printed, and newly minted leaders emerged from the production line.

If that formula reliably produced strong leaders, our organizations would be full of them. Something in that model is necessary, but incomplete.

Case Context

Years ago, I joined a medium-sized community hospital to lead the L&D function. I had no prior healthcare experience, which turned out to be an advantage—there were no entrenched assumptions to reinforce. Leadership development at that time consisted mainly of collectively reading a leadership book and discussing it.

When we began conceptualizing an actual program, the initial instinct was to default to a safe list of competencies and corresponding workshop topics. It would have satisfied governance and checked the box, but it would not have changed leadership.

The CEO—strong, impatient, and serious about leadership—wanted more than a topic checklist. He understood leadership had strategic implications (quality, succession, expansion, culture) and gave me autonomy to design something that served those goals. The bar for what existed was low; the appetite for something better was real.

What Actually Drove Impact

My prior experience had already taught me that workshops alone are only a slice of the developmental architecture. Programs gain power when they incorporate parallel learning strategies: mentoring, coaching, action learning, structured reflection, and ongoing dialogue. Longer, cohort-based programs—where leaders have time to deconstruct ideas, attempt new behaviors, fail, recalibrate, and reflect—consistently created more durable impact than short bursts of instruction.

What surprised me, and everyone else, was a benefit we did not design for: the emergence of a leadership subculture.

The directors in the program rarely interacted outside their own departments. Through the cohort experience, they developed relationships, empathy, and a collaborative support structure they had not tapped into before. Their camaraderie was palpable.

Several components contributed to that outcome, drawn from that program and others I’ve designed since:

Workshops as Touch Points

Organizations tend to view workshops as the training. They address strategic planning, budgeting, communication, emotional intelligence, and similar topics. Workshops spark great conversations, but they represent initial exposure, not transformation.

Mentoring

Programs that include mentoring often double their developmental impact. Structured mentoring—with intent, schedules, and guidance—outperforms casual arrangements. When mentors explicitly ask what was applied from the workshop, accountability increases and learning transfers.

Coaching

External coaching for higher-level leaders raises the stakes. Coaching is not easily rescheduled or forgotten. The accountability is real, and leaders engage more deeply because a third party has been hired to help them develop.

Action Learning

After workshops, leaders were asked to apply what they learned to real work. Many did—some didn’t. The learning elevated when mentors or coaches explored those attempts, successes, or failures. Application turned knowledge into capability.

Reflection and Contextualization

Inter-session time (1–4 weeks) proved crucial. Workshops constrain reflection (there’s simply no time); whereas interim periods enable it. Leaders think/reflect while driving, showering, walking the dog. Discussion boards and prompts created scenarios, forced examination of stated positions, and sharpened thinking. This is where meaning-making occurred.

Cohort Culture and Identity

This element is often invisible and always underestimated. When supervisors or directors are back in their departments, they experience leadership in isolation. The cohort changed that. Directors from different silos debated one another, laughed, told stories, and shared institutional truths—“winks within winks.” They recognized their unique organizational vantage point: privy to senior decisions yet responsible for frontline execution.

A subculture formed. They no longer objectified other directors; they saw shared constraints, expectations, and struggles. Long after certificates were handed out, relationships endured, collaboration increased, and networks strengthened.

Within this series, groups collaborated on quality improvement projects over six-week period, mapping upstream and downstream processes and presenting to senior leadership. We photographed the teams and created plaques telling the story of their improvements. Leaders asked to display them in their offices. The pride was unmistakable. They felt part of something that mattered. Many of the participants would go back to their plaques and re-read the story. They wanted copies for their office.

I realized the meaningfulness of this honor, this recognition. They recognized that they were  part of something larger than just themselves. We had tapped into something very real and powerful.

Implications

This case does not suggest that workshops or competency models are wrong. They are necessary — but insufficient. Leadership development becomes transformative only when organizations design for what happens between the sessions: reflection, application, peer connection, identity formation, and shared meaning.

When those conditions exist, leadership development stops being an event and starts becoming a culture. In hindsight, the most valuable outcome wasn’t higher competency — it was higher connection. Leaders who feel connected behave differently.