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Warning
Not all leadership
development is
created equal!
QUICK GUIDE: Leadership Development That Measures Up

The Talent Management Expert

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Question How effective is your organization’s

leadership development?

If you know, you’re in select company.

Fewer than 1 in 10 organizations measure
the impact of their leadership development.

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But while measurement is important, positive impact isn’t a given. Not all
leadership development is created equal, and there’s a sizable difference
between a system that delivers results and others that don’t.

That’s what sets DDI’s Interaction Management® (IM®) apart. Nothing can compare
with IM® when it comes to a proven track record. DDI has been assessing and
developing leaders for more than four decades, and we develop more than
250,000 leaders worldwide each year.

See for yourself!

We have conducted hundreds of studies that prove the impact of the IM®
methodology, including results such as:

• Measurable behavior change.

• Improved leader performance.
• Impact on business performance.

In this quick guide, we’ll introduce DDI’s approach to measuring the critical aspects
of a leadership development initiative. We’ll also show you the results of a recent
impact analysis study involving 50 organizations across 14 industries that evalu-
ated their leadership development programs.

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Measuring Leadership Development

DDI takes a strategic and systematic
approach to measuring talent
management initiatives.

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We Organize Measurement Around Four Areas:

1 FOCUS—Is the program targeting the right skills? For example, is the competency
model aligned with business objectives? Have development gaps been identified?

ng
2 PROCESS—Is the program being implemented effectively? Have steps been
taken to assure that it will endure in the organization?

3 OUTCOMES—Has behavior improved? Did the initiative enhance your leaders’ ability?

4 IMPACT—Is the program advancing the business? Are customers or other external
stakeholders affected positively?

By applying this approach, we can get answers to the most critical questions
surrounding a leadership development initiative’s impact.
And as we learned from our recent impact analysis study, IM® helps organizations
realize measureable impact in all four areas.

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ADDRESSING THE RIGHT SKILLS

1 FOCUS
Giving leaders what they want isn’t enough. Learning and Development professionals
need to make sure they develop the skills leaders actually need. In this regard, the
impact analysis study found that IM® hits the mark!
Building an Environment 80%
of Trust 69%

Adaptive Leadership 71%

65%

Leading Change
64%
54%
Leading High-Performance 62%
Teams 61%

Influential Leadership
59%
55%

Essentials of Leadership
57%
57%

Managing Performance Problems

57%
64%
Coaching for Improvement
53%
51%

Coaching for Success

52%
53%
Setting Performance 48%
Expectations 54%
Reviewing Performance 46%
Progress 50%

Developing Others 46%

44%
Achieving Your 45%
Leadership Potential 48%

Delegating for Results

41%
49%

Resolving Conflict
40%
44%
Leaders/Self
Retaining Talent
39%
45% Observers

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Percent Who Rated Program Participants Displaying

Behaviors Often or Almost Always Before Development

Before development, leaders gave only about half of their skills high ratings. Major areas
for improvement were resolving conflict, delegating, and retaining talent—all of which are
addressed by IM®. This data indicates there was a critical need for the leadership skills
addressed in DDI’s IM® system.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RIGHT SYSTEM

2 PROCESS
When the right skills are targeted, the leadership development program has to hit the
mark by addressing both the skill needs and the organizational culture.

The skills and concepts addressed in

the program are important for my job 84%

The skills and concepts taught in

the program fit or align with my 79%
organization’s culture

I am personally motivated to apply

the skills or concepts learned in 77%
the program

The process measures that were included in the impact analysis study showed that
among leaders who went through IM® training there was a high level of agreement
with the statements “The skills and concepts addressed in the program are important
for my job,” “The skills and concepts taught in the program fit or align with my organi-
zation’s culture,” and “I am personally motivated to apply the skills or concepts
learned in the program.”

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CHANGING LEADER BEHAVIOR

3 OUTCOMES
A major focus of this study was to examine the degree of behavior change participants
achieved after completing their development program.

86
Leader ratings
75
Observer ratings After
100%
55 55 After
90%
80%
Before
70%

60%
50%

40%
30%

20%

10%

0%

LOW AVERAGE HIGH

Percent Often or Almost Always

Overall, we found that before leaders attended their development programs, they and
their observers agreed that only about half of leaders were effective. After attending
the DDI training programs, these rose to 86 percent for self ratings and 75 percent for
observer ratings. The big finding: IM® develops imperative leadership skills and signifi-
cantly improves leadership behaviors.

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IMPACTING THE BUSINESS

4 IMPACT
It’s a fact: Leadership development affects more than just leaders. That’s why most
leadership development programs are put in place—with the hope that their positive
outcomes will help drive positive results for the organization.

Quality of Employee Work 44%

Customer Satisfaction 42%

Employee Productivity 38%

Efficiency of Operations 37%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Percent of Improvement Due to Leadership Development

As our impact analysis study showed, IM® led to post-training improvements in quality of
work, customer satisfaction, productivity, and efficiency. Such improvements can have
a positive impact on the business and the organization’s bottom line.

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Results Organizations have realized after

®
developing their leaders using IM :
Human capital ROI of 685 percent, or a return of $6.85
for every dollar invested.

During a three-year period, sales volume increased 105

percent and sales productivity increased by 68 percent
per sales representative.

Absenteeism dropped from 9 percent to 2.2 percent,

and downtime dropped from 8.78 percent to 0.7 percent.

Employee retention improved by more than 42.3 percent.

A 26.7 percent improvement in cost savings and

significant increases in employee satisfaction.

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What’s the Total Impact?

We invite you to check out the full Better Leaders, Better Business Results Through
IM: EX® impact analysis study. To download a copy, visit www.ddiworld.com/impact.

And What’s Next!

We also invite you to learn more about the new Interaction Management®:
Exceptional Leaders series. It’s frontline leadership development re-imagined
for the way leaders learn now, with engaging content, mobile support, integrated
assessment tools, and extras to drive real behavior change and business results.
Learn more at www.ddiworld.com/imexl.

A B O U T T H E I M PA C T A N A LY S I S S T U D Y

We looked at 50 organizations that evaluated their IM® leadership development programs

between 2006 and 2012. The organizations spanned all sizes across 14 different industries.
For this survey, 4,442 leaders evaluated their organization’s leadership development pro-
gram. Also providing perspectives on the results of the leadership development efforts were
6,793 colleagues of the leaders, primarily their managers, coworkers, and direct reports who
attended the programs.

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The best just got better!

Explore DDI's newest frontline leadership development
innovation, Interaction Management®: Exceptional
Leaders (IM: ExLSM), at www.ddiworld.com/imexl.

*KDJL*
KDJL

The Talent Management Expert