The most common misdiagnosis in leadership development goes like this: our leaders don’t prioritize their own growth.
I’ve now spent years exploring this question as a national leader, a federal public servant, a non-profit board member, and, most recently, as a doctoral researcher studying how healthcare leaders actually experience development.
The evidence points the other way.
Leaders want development. Badly.
What they don’t have is an organization structured to let them receive it.
One theme in my research was so stark that it became a finding in its own right: leadership development is desired but structurally marginalized.
Training was described as arriving years late or not at all. Development reduced to procedural compliance through modules that teach you to follow process, not to lead people. Programs repackaged and repeated without added value.
Growth treated as something to fit around the “real” work rather than as real work itself.
None of that is a motivation problem. It’s an architecture problem.
Here are four signs the architecture, not the appetite, is what’s failing in your organization:
Development happens on top of a full operational load. If leaders attend training while still answering pages and covering gaps, the organization has, structurally, decided that development doesn’t merit real time.
Compliance hours count as development spend. Mandatory modules on policy and process are necessary, and they are not leadership development. If your training budget can’t distinguish the two, neither can your leaders.
Timing follows the calendar, not the career. Development that arrives on an annual cycle rather than at role transitions misses the exact moments leaders need it most.
The first thing cut is always growth. When budgets tighten or staffing dips, watch what gets postponed. Organizations reveal their priorities in what they protect.
If two or more of those describe your organization, stop asking why leaders aren’t engaging with development. They are engaging with an accurate read of what your structure actually values.
The fix isn’t a better curriculum.
It’s a different set of structural decisions. That’s where we’ll go next.
Dr. Sarah Davis-Arnold
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