How Long Should a Leadership Development Course Be?

You have been asked to find a leadership development programme for the managers at your organisation. The choice is bewildering, with companies offering a host of courses which last from one day to six months. What factors should guide your decision making?

First consider what you want the target group to be able to do at the end of the course. If you are looking for them to behave differently when they get back to work at the end of the leadership development programme, and for their new behaviour to be profitable for the company, then the chances are they’ll need more than a two day course.

If you went to university, how long did you spend there? The chances are you were there for three years, and possibly longer. What about other professional training you might have done, whether in the forces, medicine, or in areas such as accounting, corporate finance, etc? How long did it take to gain the relevant experience there? When viewed from this angle it is difficult to see how two days, no matter how engaging they may be, will develop something as demanding as leadership.

What’s the minimum time required for a leadership development course to be effective? Kevin Yates, Managing Director of leadership consultants Mitchell Phoenix, thinks that five or six days over five or six months is the optimum length for a leadership development programme. “The only way we learn and develop something like leadership is to put the principles into practice in the workplace and then to regularly report back on results achieved to a group,” he says. “This requirement to perform, to adapt one’s behaviour and create results through doing so, is only achieved in leadership development courses which are run for a day a month for five or six months. Anything shorter than that, and gains may be made in the first few weeks after the course, but after that they will quickly fade and the investment will be lost.”

Interim CEO Ross Stuart, who has used Mitchell Phoenix in a number of companies including Astir, Linpac and Alderley Group, agrees: “One of the unique features of Mitchell Phoenix courses is that they are done over 6 months, 1 day per month which allows the techniques and training to be used in between sessions and each manger reports back on their successes, embedding the techniques much better that the normal 3/4 day courses.”

What is the effect on delegates? Darren Lewitt, a director at Midwich Ltd, sums up much of the feedback Mitchell Phoenix receive, “I have been on a number of courses in my time. Forget the rest, this is the best. It holds your attention all the way through. Unlike other courses, you are not distracted or fighting to get out. An amazing experience.”