Seeking a well-rounded evaluation from a leadership development process can help fine-tune your company’s L&D strategy.

Evaluation is an often neglected or misused part of the leadership development process. However, evaluation can be an engaging activity for all stakeholders of a programme that brings together information and perspectives for powerful learning as well as well-informed aligned action toward the ultimate outcomes of a leadership development process.

As the investment in leadership development increased, so has the need for leadership development evaluation. Stakeholders at all levels want to know whether the leadership programmes their companies had put in place are having an impact as well as how to increase positive results and improve efficiency.

Evaluation is far more useful when it is an integrated, ongoing part of the process. An effective evaluation includes the following:

1. Clarifies and documents outcomes

Evaluation helps us better understand and document the intended (and unintended) outcomes of leadership development. It can encourage more comprehensive discussions about what works and why among the various stakeholder groups involved. Evaluation is a systematic inquiry about programmes’ logic, resources, activities, outputs and outcomes.

Systematic inquiry requires an in-depth understanding of the principles and concepts being employed. All leadership development programmes seek to improve leadership – but what that means and why that is important – often varies among stakeholder groups. Evaluation separates concrete, measurable outcomes from wishful thinking, slogans or overly vague programme aspirations.

2. Focuses attention

Evaluation clarifies what leadership competencies are most relevant to work on and focuses attention on critical issues. When leadership development efforts use evaluation effectively, desired changes are better articulated and movement towards them accelerated. Evaluation makes explicit the intentions about what leadership development seeks to achieve and why.

3. Supports ongoing learning

Evaluation can be used to fine-tune a proposed or existing leadership development intervention as it provides systematic information to help guide programmatic inevitable changes. Once a programme is established, evaluation continues to contribute by providing ongoing information about a programme’s processes and impact. This systematic and inclusive approach clarifies and optimises the use of company resources.

Just as important, evaluation contributes to a learning mindset on the part of organisational members – a perspective which values asking questions, taking multiple perspectives and challenging assumptions.

4. Influences future actions and decisions

Evaluation demonstrates how participants, their organisation and their communities benefit from their leadership development programme experiences. This information can then be used to make choices about future efforts. Evaluation and learning share a symbiotic relationship. When evaluation is viewed as an integral part of the development process, it helps stakeholders build on what is working well and reduce or eliminate efforts that are less effective.

5. Best practices recommendations

The specific approaches and methodologies of leadership-development evaluation will vary depending upon the nature of the leadership-development programme and the organisational or community context. Here are some best practices recommendations:

• Involve stakeholders in the process in order to appropriately consider multiple needs and perspectives.
• Design the evaluation before the initiative is implemented. Ideally, the initiative and evaluation design processes would take place in conjunction with one another.
• Clarify outcomes to the extent possible with stakeholders (recognising that there may be different kinds and levels of outcomes).
• Discuss the purpose of the evaluation and how information will be used before beginning the evaluation.
• Use multiple measures to gather information about complex or vague outcomes from multiple perspectives.

6. Ideal impact

Expected outcomes will vary depending on the goals and design of the leadership development initiative. Change can be evaluated in one or more different areas:

• Individuals – What changes are shown in the knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, identities, attitudes, behaviours and capacities?
• Groups and teams – Evaluators may look for changes in workgroup climate, collaboration, and productivity.
• Organisations – Leadership development programmes may seek to influence strategy, sustainability, quantity and quality of products or services delivered. Evaluations look for changes in decision making, leadership pipelines, shared vision, alignment of activities and strategy, and key business indicators.
• Communities – Leadership development programmes may seek changes in geographic communities or communities of practice. Evaluators look for changes in the composition of leaders who are in decision-making positions, in social networks, in partnerships and alliances among organisations, and in other aspects of the community.

Jennifer W. Martineau, Ph.D.

Group director for global research

Center for Creative Leadership

www.ccl.org