The Work Most Leadership Programs Are Afraid to Do

Organizations spend billions every year on leadership development. And yet, research consistently shows that fewer than ten percent of those programs meaningfully expand a person’s capacity to think differently.

This gap shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has spent time scrolling LinkedIn. Somewhere along the way, we began mistaking motivational platitudes for development itself. Inspiration is abundant. Transformation is not.

When most organizations think "leadership training," they picture soft skills: delegation, feedback, conflict resolution. Nothing wrong with honing those skills. But the vast majority of these programs leave out the most important part. They never address how these leaders actually think, feel, and respond when those skills are needed most.

That omission is not accidental. This kind of work is harder. It cannot be reduced to a checklist or neatly packaged into a one-day workshop. It asks something far more demanding: a reshaping of one’s default responses when stakes are high and uncertainty is real.

A Distinction That Makes the Difference

Much of today’s training is rooted in what adult-development researchers call horizontal learning: the accumulation of knowledge and techniques. More frameworks. More tools. More strategies. It is efficient, measurable, and familiar.

Think of it like a flashcard. You see "conflict" and your brain retrieves the best-practices checklist from last quarter's workshop. Great if the situation fits the checklist.

Vertical learning operates differently. It changes how meaning is made. Faced with the same conflict, the individual notices their own physiological response. The tightening in the chest. The urge to defend. Instead of reacting automatically, they pause. They choose curiosity over certainty.

That pause may appear small. In practice, it represents a profound shift in capacity.

Why This Matters

In adult development theory, the distinction between horizontal and vertical learning is not academic hair-splitting; it is foundational. Horizontal learning is akin to downloading a new app. Vertical learning updates the operating system itself. No number of apps will compensate for an operating system that can’t handle complexity.

In early modeling work we’ve conducted on adaptive capacity, a consistent pattern emerges: the very capacities organizations rely on to navigate uncertainty, such as learning capacity, psychological safety, the willingness to experiment, tend to erode under sustained pressure unless they are deliberately cultivated.

Most leadership training never touches these capacities. It adds vocabulary without altering the underlying system. Behavior changes briefly. The system reverts. The language improves; the outcomes do not.

This helps explain why more than 70% percent of organizational change efforts fail. We continue to invest heavily in development that informs without transforming.

Where to Find Vertical Learning

Vertical development rarely occurs in large conference rooms or slide-heavy breakout sessions. It unfolds in environments that invite reflection, challenge assumptions, and surface emotional responses: sustained coaching relationships, peer learning communities, and smaller experiential programs designed to stretch, not soothe.

Individuals don’t need institutional permission to begin this work. Practices like reflective journaling, mindfulness, and intentionally seeking out disconfirming perspectives are not indulgent side projects. They are core developmental disciplines.

The Real Question

If leadership development is to remain relevant in modern organizations, it must move beyond the comfort of horizontal learning. The future belongs to those who intentionally cultivate their capacity to think, particularly when clarity is absent and pressure is high.

The question, then, is not whether organizations can afford to invest in vertical learning.

It is whether they can afford not to.