What Is a Leadership Development Plan?
A leadership development plan is a short written plan that names the two or three leadership capabilities you will build over the next six to twelve months, why they matter for your role, and how you will develop them through stretch work, feedback, coaching and learning. A useful plan fits on one or two pages, sets goals other people could observe and is reviewed every quarter.
Most leaders have been asked to fill in some version of a development plan, and most of those plans are forgotten by the next appraisal. The difference between a plan that works and one that gathers dust is rarely the template. It is whether the goals describe real behaviour, and whether the actions are built into the work you are already doing.
What are the parts of a leadership development plan?
A leadership development plan has six parts. Each one answers a question that, left unanswered, is usually the reason a plan stalls.
| Part | Question it answers | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | What role or level am I growing towards? | Leading a regional function within two years |
| Baseline | What do my strengths and gaps look like today, according to others? | Strong analysis; seen as hard to approach in conflict |
| Focus capabilities | Which two or three capabilities matter most for that direction? | Influencing peers; developing my direct reports |
| Development actions | How will I build them, mostly through real work? | Lead the cross-department pricing project |
| Evidence | How will I and others know it is working? | Peers seek my input before decisions, not after |
| Support and review | Who helps, and when do we check? | Coach fortnightly; manager review each quarter |
How much of the plan should be courses?
Less than most people expect. The development actions should come mainly from experience on the job, then from relationships such as feedback, mentoring and coaching, and only partly from formal learning.
This idea is often summarised as the 70-20-10 guideline, which grew out of research by the leadership institute CCL into how successful executives said they had learned. Treat the numbers as a rough proportion, not a formula. The practical point is that a plan made only of training courses rarely changes how anyone leads.
What separates a strong development goal from a weak one?
A strong goal describes something you will do differently in a specific setting, so that a colleague could notice it. A weak goal names a quality and stops there.
- Weak: "Be more strategic." Strong: "Spend the first ten minutes of each leadership meeting on decisions for next quarter, not this week's issues."
- Weak: "Improve communication." Strong: "Give each direct report one piece of specific feedback every fortnight, in our one-to-one."
- Weak: "Build confidence." Strong: "Raise at least one disagreement per executive committee meeting, with a proposal attached."
- Weak: "Develop my team." Strong: "Hand one recurring decision to each of my two senior managers by the end of March."
How do you write a leadership development plan in a week?
You can draft a credible plan in about a week if you spend most of the time gathering input rather than writing.
Days 1 and 2: gather feedback
Ask your manager, two peers and two direct reports what you should keep, start and stop doing. A structured 360-degree feedback process gives a fuller picture if one is available.
Day 3: name your direction
Write one sentence about the role or level you are growing towards. Note your strengths too; how to discover your strengths at work helps here.
Day 4: choose two or three capabilities
Pick the gaps that matter most for your direction, not the longest list you can make.
Day 5: attach real work to each one
For every capability, find an assignment, relationship or meeting where you can practise it in the next three months.
Days 6 and 7: agree support and dates
Share the draft with your manager, decide who will support you and put quarterly reviews in the calendar.
What does a plan look like for someone in a new role?
Imagine a finance manager in a multinational in Manama who has just been appointed regional finance director. Feedback says she is technically excellent but makes decisions alone and is seen as distant by country teams.
Her plan names two capabilities: influencing without authority across countries, and delegating judgement rather than tasks. Her actions are to chair the monthly regional forecast call with country leads presenting first, and to hand variance sign-off below a threshold to her deputy. Evidence is that country leads raise issues earlier. She reviews it with her coach every two weeks and with the CFO every quarter.
Which mistakes make a development plan useless?
Most plans fail for predictable reasons, and each is easy to correct at the drafting stage.
- Too many goals, so none gets real attention
- Goals written as personality traits rather than behaviours
- Actions that depend on a course date nobody has booked
- No input from the people who experience your leadership
- A plan written for the appraisal form and never opened again
- No one, apart from you, who knows what you are working on
Where does coaching fit into the plan?
Coaching is the part of a plan that keeps it alive between reviews. A coach helps you turn feedback into specific goals, notice when you slip back and adjust the plan as your role changes. My one-to-one executive coaching often starts by shaping exactly this kind of plan, and the coaching goals worksheet is a useful first draft.
Rula Husseini is an Executive Leadership & Mindset Coach (ICF PCC) based in Manama, Bahrain, with 26+ years in leadership, HR and talent development and 4,500+ coaching hours. She coaches executives, emerging leaders and teams in Arabic and English, in person and online.
Credentials and training →Frequently asked questions
Who should write my leadership development plan?
You should, with input from your manager and the people who work with you. Plans written for you by HR are easy to ignore. Your manager's role is to agree the direction, open up stretch work and review progress.
Is a leadership development plan the same as an IDP?
Broadly, yes. An individual development plan, or IDP, can cover any skill, while a leadership development plan focuses on how you lead people and influence decisions. Many organisations use the terms interchangeably.
How often should I update my plan?
Review it every quarter and rewrite it once a year, or sooner if your role changes. A plan that still lists the same goals after a year either needs sharper actions or new goals.
Do organisations in the Gulf use leadership development plans?
Many do, especially in multinationals, banks and government entities, and within national talent programmes that prepare citizens for leadership roles. Organisations designing plans at scale can look at leadership development programmes.
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