The 3 Invisible Killers of Leadership Behaviour Change – and How Top Companies Fix Them

If you’ve ever invested in leadership development only to find that behaviour change is short-lived, you’re not alone. 

The problem isn’t necessarily the quality of your leaders. It’s that most organisations unwittingly design their leadership initiatives with invisible barriers baked in. 

At Neon, we’ve worked with hundreds of leaders inside high-performing companies, and we’ve seen what separates the programs that change everything from those that barely move the dial. 

Here are the three invisible killers of leadership behaviour change – and how the best organisations overcome them. 

1. Fuzzy Objectives 

The Problem:  Most leadership programs start with good intentions – but vague goals. 

"We want better leadership." "We need to build resilience." "They should be more strategic." 

But what do those goals actually mean? And how will you know when you've achieved them? 

Without clear, specific outcomes, no one – not the leaders, not the facilitators, not the exec team – can say what success looks like. 

Why It Matters:  Leaders need clarity to change. They need to know: 

• What behaviours are expected of them 

• Why it matters to the business 

• How success will be recognised 

What Top Companies Do Instead:  They define behaviour change up front. 

One of our clients set out to improve cross-functional collaboration. Instead of stopping at that phrase, we worked together to identify exactly what they wanted to see: 

• Fewer escalations 

• Faster resolution of issues between departments 

• More proactive planning across silos 

Now that is something you can measure, track, and build a program around. 

Try This:  Ask: What will people be doing, saying, or deciding differently once this program is successful?

2. Boring or Irrelevant Content 

The Problem: 

Too many leadership programs are built for an imaginary middle manager. They’re full of generic case studies, theoretical frameworks, or worse – day-long lectures that never land in the real world. 

Why It Matters:  If content doesn’t connect to what leaders are facing right now, it won’t stick. Research shows that adults learn best when content is: 

• Directly relevant to their work 

• Practical and actionable 

• Delivered in a way that feels fresh and engaging (not patronising) 

What Top Companies Do Instead:  They build programs that mirror the challenges leaders face every day. 

In one law firm we worked with, a session on coaching wasn’t just theory. Leaders came in with real situations they needed to move, and practised using their own examples. Leaders left the room with: 

• New language for integrating coaching into everyday interactions 

• Reframed narratives for upcoming conversations 

• Practical feedback from peers 

Try this:  

Look at your last leadership development session. Was the content relevant, timely and practical – or could it have been replaced by a TED Talk? What would make your next program unmissable? 

3. No Follow-Through 

The Problem:  Leadership training is treated like a one-and-done solution. A day of inspiration, and then... back to the grind. 

Why It Matters:  The forgetting curve is real. Research from Harvard shows that up to 90% of new skills are lost within a year without ongoing reinforcement. [1] 

Even the best training won't stick if leaders don't get support, reflection, and challenge over time. 

What Top Companies Do Instead:  

They embed follow-through into the culture. That might look like: 

• Group coaching or peer forums every month 

• Line managers reinforcing behaviours in one-to-ones 

• Dashboards that track leadership impact alongside business metrics 

In one international finance brand we worked with, leaders received short, targeted nudges after every module – like a micro-prompt to practise new innovation and collaboration skills in their next team meeting. 

That simple reinforcement increases the number of leaders applying new skills week to week. 

Try this: 

What’s the ripple effect of putting a simple system in place to help leaders apply what they’ve just learned – and keep growing next week, next month, next quarter? 

Sketch it out: 

Draw two lines – one showing the trajectory of leadership impact with ongoing support, the other without it. Now zoom out: how does that difference show up in the teams they lead?

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So, How Do You Improve Leadership Performance? 

You start by removing what gets in the way: 

• Set clear, observable outcomes 

• Make the content real, relevant and alive 

• Build in follow-through that leaders actually look forward to 

When you get those three things right, behaviour change isn’t just possible. It becomes the new normal. That’s how performance improves. That’s how culture shifts. 

 And that’s what we build at Neon. 

Find out more about how we can help your leadership team create long-term meaningful change here: https://www.neonleadership.com/leadership-development 

[1] Harvard Business Review, 2019.  "Where Companies Go Wrong with Learning and Development."