Niamh McDonald’s Post

Top 5 Leadership Development Trends in 2025 Leadership is evolving faster than ever. As organizations face new levels of complexity, today’s leaders must grow beyond traditional management. Here are the top 5 trends shaping leadership development in 2025: 🔹 AI-Enabled Coaching & Learning Leaders are leveraging AI tools to receive real-time feedback, strengthen decision-making, and personalize their growth. 🔹 Emotional Intelligence as a Core Skill Empathy, self-awareness, and emotional regulation are now non-negotiable differentiators in high-performing teams. 🔹 Micro-Learning & Just-In-Time Training Short, targeted development modules help leaders learn faster and apply concepts immediately. 🔹 Coaching Culture Over Managing Organizations are shifting toward coaching-based conversations that accelerate performance and accountability. 🔹 Human-Centered Leadership People-first leadership improves retention, engagement, and organizational trust. Leaders who invest in these trends now will be better positioned to manage change, innovate, and build resilient teams. 💬 Which trend do you think will have the biggest impact this year?

Leadership development doesn't happen in a day-long session and then disappear. Real change requires ongoing support between the big moments. That's why coaching is built into the work with leadership teams. Once or twice a month, leaders meet one-on-one with their coach to work through what's actually happening. Not theory. Not motivational speeches. Real conversations about the challenges they're facing right now and the decisions they need to make. Between sessions, there's ad hoc support when something urgent comes up. A difficult conversation looming. A team dynamic shifting. A decision that feels stuck. These consistent touchpoints keep momentum going. It creates accountability without pressure. It gives leaders space to think through what they're learning and how to apply it in their specific context. The team sessions build connection and alignment. The coaching makes it stick.

🌄 Yesterday@Zbac adventure & liesure resort in beautiful weather & nature - ~We wrapped up a dynamic Leadership Development Program for First-Time Leaders—complete with outbound challenges, reflective dialogues, leadership style assessments, and action-planning that didn’t just stay on paper… it stayed in the participants' minds. ~And yes—there were moments of “Aha!”, “Oh no… that is my style,” and the classic “Now this makes sense!” 😊 🔥 What We Explored (and Experienced!) 1. Leadership Styles,Models,Levels 2. Delegation that Actually Works 3. Building Empowering Cultures 💡 Powerful Takeaways Leadership is a verb, not a title. Action builds influence, not designations. Delegation is growth—both for the leader and the team. Empowerment is not a policy—it’s a daily behavior. Clarity beats speed. Communication beats assumptions. Culture is shaped less by annual speeches and more by daily behaviours. 📝 Action Plans (and Real Commitment!) Every participant walked away with a 30-day leadership action plan—practical, measurable, and ready for review. From improving team communication to strengthening decision-making and feedback habits, they’re now equipped with tools that create results, not just inspiration. ✨ The Impact By the end of the program, first-time leaders weren’t just leading teams—they were leading themselves better. And that is where real leadership begins. Because leadership shouldn’t be learned only in conference rooms. Sometimes, the forest teaches it better. 🌿 leadership development program#Leadership coaching #Teambonding

Leadership isn’t a milestone. It’s a muscle! Too many professionals treat leadership development like a one-and-done certification. A course. A seminar. A promotion. A box ticked. But actually the further your career takes you, the more your leadership needs to evolve. You change. Your responsibilities change. The people you lead change. And the world? That’s changing faster than ever. The leadership style that worked for you 5 years ago might be completely ineffective today. What got you here won’t get you there! That’s why the best leaders treat leadership development as a life-long learning habit... ...not an event, but a process. Not about becoming perfect, but about becoming better. They seek feedback even when it stings. They invest in coaching and learning, even when it’s uncomfortable. They stay curious, even when they feel experienced. Leadership isn’t about having the answers. It’s about asking better questions, year after year. Are you still growing as a leader, or are you relying on outdated skills for today’s challenges? If it's the latter, then I can help you. Check out the Springboard Leadership Academy and take your leadership to the next level: buff.ly/fs7J13g

We are teaching leaders the wrong things. Most leadership development teaches skills (horizontal growth)  but ignores the mindset shifts (vertical growth) that unlock performance in complexity. The result? Technically brilliant leaders who struggle with ambiguity, systemic challenges, and adaptive problems  because we have upgraded their toolkit without upgrading their operating system. Why this matters: Horizontal development = what leaders know. Communication skills, strategic frameworks, running better meetings… useful, measurable, but limited. Vertical development = how leaders think Expanding capacity to hold multiple perspectives, make sense of ambiguity, and adapt when the playbook runs out. We have invested heavily in horizontal development while largely ignoring vertical. One adds tools to the toolkit. The other transforms how leaders see and respond to the world. The leaders who thrive in uncertainty haven’t just learned more, they have developed a different operating system for interpreting and responding to complexity. The question isn’t whether we need both. We do. One adds capability. The other transforms capacity. When designing leadership development, ask yourself: Are you helping leaders evolve how they think or just adding more to what they know? This is part of my series on rethinking leadership development for organisations that are evolving to thrive in complexity and change Discover how a dual approach (skills + mindset) equips leaders for complexity in my article for theHRDIRECTOR (link in comments) #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganisationalDevelopment #HRLeadership

Reflecting on my recent leadership training program, this learning journey has shown how leadership grows from self-mastery to organizational impact. It begins with self-awareness, using the Johari Window to understand our own perspectives and how others see us. Next, through the Thomas-Kilmann model, we learn conflict management and negotiation — identifying when to collaborate, when to compromise, and when to stand firm, balancing both results and relationships. With Emotional Intelligence, we practice responding with empathy, recognizing emotions — both ours and others’ — to build trust and stability in high-pressure situations. As we mature, we realize that true leadership lies in serving before leading — guiding teams through clarity, fairness, and consistency. Finally, through mentorship, we turn personal growth into collective progress, enabling others to grow confidently in their own roles. In essence, leadership is much like a journey of evolution of a seed — from knowing ourselves to leading others; sprouting, facing weathers, becoming plant , shielding younger saplings and finally emerging as a tree which can point towards sunlight and provide shade- from managing tasks to influencing systems; from self-awareness to sustained organizational excellence.

The leadership crisis isn’t a skills gap. It’s a self-awareness gap. Too many leaders assume others think like they do. Spoiler: They don’t. 5 Voices is the simplest framework to: • reduce miscommunication • increase trust • retain your best people • and build leaders worth following at every level Over the next 30 days, we’ll explore: ✅ each voice’s superpowers ✅ where they struggle ✅ what happens when they’re too quiet or too loud ✅ what healthy leadership looks like Attracting and engaging talent isn’t magic. It’s mastery of communication + human motivation. Which voice do you think is yours? Take the FREE assessment. Link in the comments.👇 _______ Culture isn’t built in retreats; it’s built in daily conversations. I help leaders communicate clearly, consistently, and with purpose. → 5 Voices Leader Academies → 5 Voices for Teams Programs → Leader Intensives → 1:1 Executive Coaching

20 Deep Questions to Ask Before Designing a Senior Leadership Training Program... Most leadership trainings teach people what to do. The great ones make them question who they are. Before you design your next senior leadership program, dare to ask: 1. What if the leader’s next evolution isn’t upward — but inward? 2. What if unlearning is the real curriculum? 3. How much of our “leadership” is just fear in disguise? 4. What culture are our leaders unconsciously protecting? 5. If no one could be fired, how would leadership change? 6. Are our leaders chasing growth or escaping stillness? 7. What truth would dismantle our entire strategy — yet set us free? 8. How do we reward wisdom in a world addicted to speed? 9. What parts of the future are already trying to train us? 10. If our brand had a soul, what lesson would it need to learn? 11. What happens when we train empathy as rigorously as analytics? 12. Are we teaching presence — or performance? 13. What invisible fear drives 80% of our decisions? 14. How can leaders lead without needing to be leaders? 15. What would change if silence were part of every training module? 16. Who is our organization becoming through our leaders’ consciousness? 17. What beliefs must die for our next strategy to live? 18. How can leadership be felt, not taught? 19. What if the purpose of leadership was to make itself unnecessary? 20. What if leadership development was really a collective awakening? Because transformation doesn’t start with content — it starts with questions that break the frame. #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveLearning #L&D #Transformation #MindsetShift

We think performance is about pressure. It isn’t. It’s about the quality of the conversations leaders are having every day. Gallup found that 70% of a team’s engagement is directly influenced by the quality of their leader. Not the targets. Not the dashboards. Not the cascade of change and communication. The leader. And yet, 82% of people step into leadership without any formal leadership development. (CMI, 2024) So we promote someone because they’re strong in their role… …and then expect them to confidently coach, delegate, communicate, influence, and empower others. With no support or guidance on how to do so. This is where so many avoidable challenges begin: ⚡️Leaders hold too much ⚡️Delegation feels cumbersome ⚡️Conversations feel difficult & heavy ⚡️Teams stop thinking for themselves ⚡️Performance gets carried by the few The shift isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about leading differently. When leaders learn to coach in the flow of work you have an opportunity to build trust, improve feedback, accelerate performance and accountability. This is exactly what I’ll be teaching in Coaching Skills for Leaders, starting 18th November. This is a practical 3-part series to help leaders: 🔥Lead more collaboratively 🔥Build confidence and capability in their teams 🔥Create performance that lasts If you’d like to book on, comment COACH and I’ll send you more details. #coachingskills #leadershipdevelopment #growthmindset #highperformancecoach

It gives me a high dose of frustration, and maybe rage, every time I see leadership development is approached as competencies and skillsets. Leadership is bringing alignment to purpose. It's about promoting the values and the mindset that serves individuals and bring them together with their communities and organizations. Skills are just the vehicle to get there. They change with technology and the passing of time from one generation to another. Leadership don't. Leadership development not approached as a full, lengthy, character-building program integrated into the system is just another waste of resources on a 3-day nonsense workshop discussing big names, fancy titles, and Fortune 500 case studies with no true nor deep impact. Leadership is the mindset that transforms values into cultural norms. And thus, it's a learning journey not a training course. Leaders are nurtured, not cooked.