From Insight To Impact: How L&D Can Create The Conditions For Leadership Development To Stick

Why Environment Matters More Than We Think

Leadership development doesn’t happen in isolation. Leaders don’t operate in sealed pods - they work in dynamic, messy, real-world systems. And those systems either support behaviour change… or quietly crush it.

If we want leadership learning to turn into leadership impact, we need to stop focusing only on what leaders learn, and start shaping the conditions in which they lead.

At LIW, we believe real business impact is achieved when three things are in place:

1. Clear, defined behavioural performance - the specific actions linked to outcomes.

2. An enabling environment, defined through our 3Cs™ framework.

3. Leadership behaviour that actively creates and reinforces those enabling conditions.

But how do we ensure these three elements stick beyond the workshop??

Acceleration: A leadership development momentum model

At LIW, we apply a frame called Acceleration - a design philosophy that flips the traditional learning model.

Most leadership development starts with self-reflection and mindset. Acceleration starts with the organisational context - what matters most to the business - and builds momentum by moving through:

1. Context – What is the compelling reason for investing in leadership development? What business outcomes is the organisation trying to achieve, and how will leadership development accelerate progress toward them? This step ensures the work is grounded in relevance, urgency, and return on investment - clearly answering the question: Why this, why now?

2. System – What is the organisation trying to achieve right now, and what systems - structures, rhythms, incentives, and priorities - are shaping the way work gets done? How can we ensure the development of leadership behaviour is integrated with, and enabled by, these systems so it doesn't compete with the day-to-day reality but enhances it? 

3. Team – What enables teams to sustain new leadership behaviours and translate learning into team outcomes? What rhythms, relationships, and habits will help leaders maintain momentum and build trust, clarity, and shared accountability as they embed new behaviours with others?

4. Self – What mindsets, habits and self-awareness do leaders need to stay intentional and present in the face of competing demands? How will they maintain focus, reflect productively, and take ownership for translating their leadership into sustained impact?

5. Embed – What support, accountability and feedback loops will help leaders sustain change over time? How do we ensure ongoing reinforcement, alignment from senior stakeholders, and tools that keep new behaviours visible, valued and repeatable?

By sequencing development this way, we make sure leadership learning is:

• Rooted in real-world performance

• Connected to the levers that drive culture and delivery

• Designed to create momentum and stickiness

‍Start with behaviour that drives impact

One of the most common pitfalls in leadership development is vagueness. “Be more strategic.” “Step up.” “Lead with empathy.” These are well-intentioned phrases but they don’t guide behaviour.

If we want learning to land, we need to ask:

“What would good leadership look like in this specific context?”

That means identifying the behaviours - observable, repeatable, and relevant - that are most likely to create the impact we’re after.

• If your goal is faster innovation, you might need behaviours like rapid decision-making, sharing imperfect ideas, and giving timely feedback.
• For stronger cross-functional collaboration, the focus might be on joint problem-solving, active listening, proactive relationship building and clear role navigation.

The clearer the behaviours, the easier it is for leaders to put their learning into action - and for teams to know what “good” looks like.

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Enter the 3Cs™: Conditions for success

Here’s the core truth: Even the most capable leader can’t succeed if the environment around them makes the right behaviour difficult, risky, or unrewarded.

That’s where the 3Cs™ - Clarity, Climate, and Competence - come in.

Clarity

Clarity isn’t just about sharing information, it’s about ensuring understanding. It includes:

• Purpose, strategy, roles, metrics

• AND the effort to ensure people deeply grasp what those things mean

• It’s about engagement: Do people know what’s expected of them and how to contribute meaningfully?

The best information is wasted if people aren’t helped to connect with it emotionally and practically.

Climate

Climate refers to the environment people operate within - both tangible and cultural:

• Structure, systems, processes, hierarchy and space

• And also: Relationships, shared beliefs, language, and working norms

Is the environment reinforcing the behaviours you want? Or making them harder?

Competence

Competence includes both:

• Skills and knowledge leaders and teams need

• Mindset and behaviours they bring to challenges

Are people equipped and empowered to act effectively?

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How we use the 3Cs™: A practical flow

To make the 3Cs actionable, we approach them in three steps:

1. Start with the ideal: What would good look like, in this context, across Clarity, Climate, and Competence?

2. Assess the current state: How close are we to that ideal? Where are we already strong? Where are the gaps?

3. Define the best next step: What’s the most impactful thing we can do next to close that gap?

This moves us beyond generic action plans and into targeted, context-specific improvement. It’s pragmatic, not theoretical.

When paired with the Acceleration model, this approach creates a powerful synergy:

• Acceleration gives us the sequence and structure to drive change

• The 3Cs define the conditions we need to create in the system for that change to take hold

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Leadership: The lever for change

Here’s where things come full circle: leaders don’t just act within the environment. They shape it.

Their daily behaviours influence all three Cs:

• A leader who makes purpose explicit contributes to Clarity.

• A leader who encourages healthy challenge helps shape Climate.

• A leader who coaches rather than controls builds Competence in others.

That’s why leadership development isn’t just about personal growth—it’s about system-wide performance.

When we help leaders understand how their behaviour creates the conditions for success, we empower them not just to perform—but to enable others to perform, too.

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Real-world example: Don’t just train, transform

A financial services firm rolled out a leadership program focused on coaching mindsets and better delegation. Leaders loved it, but back in the business, old habits returned fast.

Why? Because the systems and norms hadn’t changed. Teams were still overloaded with reports. Time pressures made coaching feel like a “nice to have.” And no one was rewarding people for taking initiative.

Once the L&D team applied the 3Cs™, the shift began - they:

• worked with leaders to clarify expectations and reduce reporting clutter (Clarity)

• shifted meeting structures and performance reviews to reward risk-taking and peer feedback (Climate)

• built short, team-based learning labs to upskill coaching behaviours and reflective practice (Competence)

Within months, they saw increased employee initiative, better engagement scores, and a tangible rise in internal mobility.

Had they also sequenced this effort using the Acceleration model - beginning with organisational imperatives and system shifts before targeting team and self - they may have seen even faster, more sustainable impact.

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So what can L&D do differently?

The Acceleration model helps us rethink how leadership development is delivered and sustained. It offers a sequence that aligns development to business need, system dynamics, team interaction, and individual growth - so that change sticks. Based on this, here’s what L&D teams can do to shift from insight to sustained impact:

• Start with context and clarity: Begin by understanding the organisation’s current challenges and priorities. Use these to define the compelling reason for leadership development and anchor learning in strategic relevance.

• Define performance through behaviour: Clearly describe the observable, repeatable actions that reflect effective leadership in your unique context. Make sure they’re tightly linked to business impact.

• Diagnose and shape the environment: Apply the 3Cs™ to map the current state of Clarity, Climate, and Competence. Identify the enablers and blockers, then act to close the most critical gaps.

• Use the Acceleration sequence: Structure development to follow the flow from Context → System → Team → Self → Embed. This builds strategic alignment, strengthens relevance, and sustains momentum.

• Support leaders as environment-shapers: Help leaders recognise their influence on the conditions around them. Equip them to create the space, structure, and reinforcement others need to thrive.

• Think systemically, embed intentionally: Go beyond content delivery. Use tools, coaching, peer accountability and stakeholder alignment to embed learning into everyday rhythms and routines.

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Final word: From learning to leverage

Leadership development isn’t an event - it’s a lever. A good program doesn’t just shift mindsets; it should reshape environments, enable performance, and unlock impact at scale.

As L&D professionals, our job is not just to inspire, but to architect the conditions that make change possible.

When we apply the 3Cs and the principles of Acceleration, we don’t just help leadership stick - we help it spread, we amplify its impact and we help to transform people's experience of work.

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