Understanding of the Impact of Leadership Development

Leadership development is big business. It is estimated to be a $14 billion industry in the United States. In my country, Denmark, with approximately 5.7 million people, the amount spent on adult continuing education, which includes leadership development, is estimated to be $4.5 billion. That’s a lot of money. But the size of the investment notwithstanding, it has been pointed out that the programs and activities devoted to leadership development are often based on little more than anecdotes, personal experience, and guesses about what might be effective—for the individual and for the organization.
I did some preliminary research about what conditions in the workplace may promote the impact of leadership development. In my study of managers in the Danish public sector, I looked at nine possible conditions that the transfer literature suggested were likely to be important in this