Stop Developing Leaders—Start Unleashing Them
The world doesn’t need more trained leaders. It needs real ones. Leaders who respond with clarity when chaos hits. Leaders who can read a room faster than they read a spreadsheet. Leaders who know how to pull the best out of others, not just perform for the org chart. The problem? Most leadership development programs aren’t built for any of that.
Instead, we’re still working off a decades-old factory model: input the raw materials (employees), apply training and competency frameworks, output a ready-made leader. It’s clean. It’s logical. It’s also wildly disconnected from how leadership actually works in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world.
The assumption behind traditional development programs is that leaders are empty vessels to be filled—with frameworks, with knowledge, with best practices. But the most transformative leaders I’ve ever coached or observed didn’t become who they are by being “filled.” They became great because something powerful in them was unlocked.
Learning from Satya Nadella
Take Satya Nadella. When he took over as CEO of Microsoft in 2014, the company was bloated with bureaucracy and stuck in a defensive crouch. The leadership pipeline wasn’t empty—it was underpowered.
Nadella didn’t immediately restructure the org or launch a top-down development curriculum. What he did was more subtle—and far more powerful. He asked better questions. He challenged assumptions. And most importantly, he changed the tone. He gave permission for leaders to act with empathy, curiosity, and boldness—traits that had been buried under years of performance theater.
The Data Behind Unleashing Leaders
This shift toward unleashing instead of developing isn’t just philosophical—it’s grounded in hard data. Google’s Project Oxygen, which analyzed the behaviors of its most effective managers, found that technical expertise ranked dead last. What mattered most? Coaching. Psychological safety. Decision-making clarity. In other words, the ability to bring out the best in others, not just manage a team or complete a task list.
Breakthroughs Happen in Real Moments
In coaching senior leaders, I’ve seen this again and again. The inflection point for growth doesn’t come when someone masters a new framework. It comes when they finally stop hiding. When they stop managing perceptions and start aligning with their values. When they learn to name their fears and lead anyway. These moments don’t happen in a classroom. They happen in coaching conversations, real feedback sessions, and difficult decisions made under pressure.
The Leadership Environment Has Changed
The reason this matters now more than ever is that the leadership environment has changed, but our approach hasn’t. We’re still acting like there’s a “right” way to lead, as if one-size-fits-all. But the truth is, in today’s environment, what works is context agility. Leaders need to flex, adapt, and move between styles like musicians shifting keys—fast and fluid.
From Development to Unleashing
So here’s the bold idea: instead of trying to mold leaders into something we think they should be, what if we focused on removing the barriers that stop them from being who they already are at their best? What if the role of leadership development was to release, not refine? To create the space for reflection, risk, and realignment?
Shifting from development to unleashing requires rethinking our systems:
Less emphasis on rigid training programs, more on deep coaching.
Fewer competency models, more catalytic questions.
Less performance management, more energy management.
When we stop trying to “build” leaders and start trying to unleash them, we move closer to the kind of leadership this world desperately needs: courageous, clear, human, and real.
And that kind of leadership isn’t manufactured. It’s revealed.
Let’s go full throttle.
