From Operational Experts to Strategic Leaders: Developing Emerging Leaders Through Leadership Development Programmes
- Jaya Kashyap
- Apr 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 18
Organisations are under a lot of pressure to grow, run more efficiently, and manage big transformations. Whether they're scaling up, undergoing organisation-wide changes, or simply aiming to stay competitive, the expectations are high.
Leadership development plays a huge part in making these things happen. No one in the business can move faster than its leaders, especially the CEO. They're the ones who have to set the direction, make tough calls, own results, and create the conditions for others to succeed.
But what we often find in our leadership development programmes at Esendia is that the senior leadership team, particularly in smaller or founder-led businesses, ends up carrying too much of that load. Their second line of leaders, those just below the top team, often aren’t yet operating at the level needed. Not because they lack talent, far from it, but because they’ve become expert doers rather than decision-makers.
How does this happen?
Developing Emerging Leaders: A Common Challenge
In businesses led by strong, hands-on CEOs and top teams, a culture forms around clarity, control and quick decision-making from the top. It's easy to see why; it gets results, especially when the business needs to grow fast or in a crisis. But over time, the second line adapts to this style. People who are great at delivering are hired and promoted. They're practical, fast, and dependable. But they’re not used to making judgement calls, leading change or being comfortable with ambiguity.
So, when a company needs to shift, grow or transform and everyone’s input at the top is required, this second line isn’t ready. They’ve become great implementers but hesitate to take the lead themselves.
This is where our leadership development programmes come in.
We’re often asked to support the development of emerging leaders. Either through structured leadership programmes designed to help them step into more senior roles or by working with established second-line teams to help them collaborate more effectively and better support the top team.
Whatever the set-up, our goal is to help leaders become more confident, independent, and capable of driving outcomes rather than just delivering them.
Step 1: Understand What the Business Needs from Its Leaders
We start by looking at what the organisation is trying to achieve. What’s the growth or change ambition? What kind of leadership is going to be needed to make that happen? What’s missing today?
This gives us the foundation to shape a leadership development approach that’s actually useful and tied to the real work of the business.
Step 2: Leadership Diagnostics
Next, we help leaders understand where they are now. We use a mix of tools like 360-degree feedback, personality profiling and skills audits. This isn’t about box-ticking. It’s about giving leaders real insight into their strengths and what’s holding them back.
360-degree feedback tools, in particular, provide a rounded view by gathering input from colleagues, direct reports, and line managers. The benefit of 360-degree feedback is that it highlights how someone shows up to others, not just how they see themselves.
Combined with personality profiling and a good conversation about career goals, this creates a starting point for meaningful growth.
Step 3: Feedback, Focus Areas and Leadership Coaching
We take the results of the diagnostics and feed them back through one-to-one sessions. It’s not just about pointing out gaps. It’s about helping people pick the right things to work on.
If we’re working with an intact team, we’ll also share aggregated team feedback in a workshop. This opens up honest conversations: What’s going well? What’s holding us back? How do we get better at making decisions, taking risks, and backing ourselves?
We usually follow this with leadership coaching. One-to-one coaching helps people break patterns, build confidence, and stay accountable to the changes they want to make. Whether someone’s stepping up for the first time or trying to be more effective in their current role or team, coaching is a key part of the shift.
Step 4: Immersive and Experiential Learning
Real leadership development doesn’t come from the classroom alone. It comes from doing—from real moments, challenges, and experiences that test an emerging leader. It’s the point where learning truly begins: when the person is in it, doing it, and learning as they go.
That’s why we put a lot of focus on experiential learning. In our leadership development programmes, this might mean:
- Group projects that matter to the business
- Mini challenges on the Esendia development platform
- Peer learning through coaching circles
In team effectiveness work, we help teams put changes into action in the way they meet, make decisions, and solve problems together. We often join team meetings to support this in real time.
This is where we start to see the shift. People try new behaviours, they step forward more, and they learn what works for them. And with the support of a facilitator or a coach, we create safe spaces in real-world situations for emerging leaders to try something new or different.
Step 5: Reflection and Continual Learning
Reflection helps people make sense of what they’re learning. We build this into our work through regular coaching, peer learning sessions, and self-guided weekly reflection check-ins on the Esendia platform.
We encourage people to go back to their 360-degree feedback and revisit their leadership development plan. Are they working on the right things? What’s changed since the last time they looked?
In teams, this reflective approach helps people get better not just individually but collectively. It makes space for honest conversations and ongoing adjustment.
Our High-Impact Development Programmes Handbook is your guide to designing leadership initiatives that create real, measurable growth. Download the handbook
Creating the Right Culture for Leadership Growth
One of the most important things we’ve learned is that no amount of leadership development training will stick if the culture doesn’t support it.
A big part of behaviour change is manager support. Leaders need room to try things out, make mistakes, and learn. If they’re not backed by their own manager, or worse, if their manager is still operating in a top-down way, it’s hard to shift.
This is why we often end up working with the top team too. If the C-suite wants a more confident, empowered second line, they need to adjust how they lead as well. That means looking at their own behaviours. Are they giving space for others to lead? Are they letting go of the idea that they have to have all the answers?
We use 360-degree feedback and coaching with top teams to help make this shift. Because second-line leaders won’t step up if they keep being pulled back down. They won’t take decisions if they’re criticised for making the wrong ones. It’s all connected.
Explore our leadership development solutions: https://www.esendia.com/leadership-development
In Summary
Helping leaders move from operational excellence to confident leadership takes work. It takes a structured approach, good diagnostic tools, real-life experimentation and learning, and a culture that supports risk-taking and growth.
But when it’s done well, the impact is huge. You end up with leaders who don’t just follow instructions, they take ownership, lead change, and enable others to succeed.
And that’s what organisations need if they’re serious about growing, changing, or doing more with less.
If you’re ready to invest in leadership development, we’d love to help you build confident, capable leaders who can take your business to the next level.
