Articles / Why Take a Leadership Course: Reasons and Benefits Explained
Development, Training & CoachingDiscover why leadership courses matter. Learn the reasons professionals invest in leadership development and whether a leadership programme is right for you.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Thu 30th October 2025
Why take a leadership course when experience itself teaches leadership? This question deserves honest examination rather than automatic endorsement. Research from the Center for Creative Leadership indicates that whilst 70% of leadership development occurs through experience, the remaining 30% from formal training and relationships accelerates and deepens what experience alone provides. Not everyone needs a leadership course; understanding who benefits and how enables better investment decisions.
The case for leadership courses rests on what they add beyond natural learning from experience—structure, frameworks, feedback, practice opportunities, and perspectives that self-directed development rarely provides.
Leadership courses offer distinct value that experience and self-study cannot fully replicate:
Structured learning: Courses provide organised frameworks for understanding leadership. Random experience teaches lessons unsystematically; structured programmes build capability deliberately.
Accelerated development: Formal development compresses learning that might take years of unguided experience. Courses distil insights that experience eventually teaches, but faster.
Expanded perspectives: Exposure to diverse approaches, industries, and viewpoints broadens thinking. Self-directed learning often reinforces existing perspectives rather than challenging them.
Safe practice: Courses provide practice environments without real-world consequences. Simulations, exercises, and role-plays enable experimentation that daily work rarely allows.
Honest feedback: Structured feedback mechanisms—360-degree assessments, peer input, facilitator observations—illuminate blind spots that colleagues may not reveal.
Network building: Connections with fellow participants create lasting professional relationships. Networks provide ongoing learning, support, and career opportunity.
Credential value: Formal programmes provide credentials signalling capability and commitment. Credentials affect career progression in many contexts.
| Value Element | What It Provides | Why Experience Alone Doesn't |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | Organised capability building | Experience teaches randomly |
| Acceleration | Faster development | Unguided learning is slow |
| Perspectives | Broader viewpoints | Self-learning reinforces biases |
| Safe practice | Risk-free experimentation | Real situations have consequences |
| Feedback | Blind spot awareness | Colleagues often withhold |
| Networks | Professional connections | Limited to existing contacts |
| Credentials | Recognition | Experience lacks formal proof |
Courses address common leadership challenges:
Transition struggles: Moving into leadership roles without preparation. Courses prepare for transitions before problems emerge.
Capability gaps: Specific skills or knowledge lacking for current or future roles. Targeted development addresses identified gaps.
Plateau concerns: Career progression stalling without clear advancement path. Development signals commitment and builds advancement readiness.
Confidence deficits: Uncertainty about leadership capability undermining effectiveness. Courses build confidence through knowledge and practice.
Feedback poverty: Lack of honest feedback limiting self-awareness. Structured feedback environments compensate for feedback-poor workplaces.
Isolation: Leadership loneliness without peer support. Courses connect leaders facing similar challenges.
Perspective narrowness: Limited exposure to alternative approaches. External perspectives challenge assumptions and expand options.
Several groups particularly benefit:
New leaders: Those transitioning into leadership roles for the first time. Early development prevents costly learning through failure.
Aspiring leaders: Those preparing for future leadership responsibilities. Proactive development positions for advancement.
Experienced leaders facing new challenges: Leaders encountering unfamiliar situations—larger scope, different contexts, new types of challenges. Development addresses capability gaps.
Leaders receiving feedback suggesting gaps: Those whose 360-degree feedback, performance reviews, or direct input indicates development needs. Courses address identified weaknesses.
Stuck leaders: Those whose careers have plateaued despite capability. Development investment may unlock progression.
Leaders seeking refresh: Experienced leaders wanting renewed perspective and energy. Courses provide renewal alongside new learning.
High potentials: Those identified as future senior leaders. Early investment accelerates readiness for greater responsibility.
Some situations suggest lower priority:
Those without leadership responsibilities: If leadership isn't part of current or intended role, other development may prove more valuable.
Those recently completing development: If substantial recent development occurred, application time may be more valuable than additional programmes.
Those facing immediate crises: When urgent operational demands preclude genuine engagement, postponing development may be wiser than distracted participation.
Those lacking organisational support: Without support for application, development may frustrate more than help.
Those unwilling to change: If genuine openness to development is absent, programmes waste resources.
Individual gains include:
Capability expansion: New skills, knowledge, and approaches applicable to leadership challenges. Expanded capability increases effectiveness.
Confidence growth: Greater assurance in leadership ability. Confidence affects willingness to take on challenges and persist through difficulty.
Self-awareness deepening: Better understanding of strengths, weaknesses, patterns, and impact. Self-awareness enables intentional development.
Perspective broadening: Exposure to different industries, contexts, and approaches. Broader perspective improves judgment and creativity.
Network development: Connections with peers facing similar challenges. Networks provide ongoing learning, support, and opportunities.
Energy renewal: Stepping away from daily demands for focused development. Renewal restores energy that sustained pressure depletes.
Career positioning: Credentials, capability, and visibility supporting advancement. Development investment signals commitment to growth.
Organisational gains include:
Leadership quality improvement: Better-developed leaders improve organisational performance. Leadership quality directly affects results.
Succession strengthening: Developed leaders ready for larger responsibilities. Bench strength provides succession options.
Culture enhancement: Developed leaders model learning and growth. Development culture spreads through organisations.
Retention improvement: Development investment increases loyalty and reduces turnover. Leaders stay where they grow.
Innovation stimulation: Exposed leaders bring new perspectives to organisations. External learning enters through developed leaders.
Change capability: Leaders skilled in leading change support organisational adaptation. Development builds change capability.
| Benefit Level | Examples | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Individual capability | New skills, broader knowledge | Personal effectiveness |
| Individual confidence | Increased assurance | Willingness to lead |
| Individual awareness | Understanding patterns | Intentional development |
| Individual network | Peer connections | Ongoing support |
| Organisational quality | Better leadership | Performance improvement |
| Organisational succession | Ready leaders | Continuity assurance |
| Organisational culture | Learning modelling | Development normalisation |
Consider these factors:
1. Current capability gaps: What specific leadership capabilities require development? Clarity about gaps enables targeted investment.
2. Career direction: Where are you heading? Future roles inform development priorities.
3. Available options: What programmes are accessible? Budget, time, and employer support shape options.
4. Alternative paths: Could coaching, mentoring, or self-study address needs? Courses aren't the only development approach.
5. Timing appropriateness: Is now the right time? Other pressures may preclude genuine engagement.
6. Commitment readiness: Are you genuinely ready to engage and apply learning? Half-hearted participation wastes resources.
7. Organisational support: Will your organisation support participation and application? Support affects return on investment.
Ask yourself:
Leadership can be developed, though some aspects prove more teachable than others:
Highly developable: Communication skills, feedback delivery, delegation, coaching approaches, strategic thinking frameworks, emotional intelligence awareness.
Moderately developable: Influencing approaches, vision articulation, presence, resilience patterns, authenticity expression.
Less developable through courses: Fundamental values, basic intelligence, intrinsic motivation—though courses can help channel these appropriately.
Research consistently demonstrates that leadership capability improves with development. The question isn't whether leadership can be learned but which aspects respond to which interventions.
Experience teaches powerfully but incompletely:
Experience advantages: Real stakes, immediate feedback on results, contextual relevance, personal ownership.
Experience limitations: May teach wrong lessons, limited to available situations, reinforces existing biases, lacks comparative perspective, provides narrow exposure.
What courses add: Structure for extracting lessons, diverse perspectives, frameworks for understanding, safe practice, feedback beyond results, broader exposure.
The most effective development combines experience with formal learning—courses informing experience, experience grounding courses. Neither alone maximises development.
Good leaders continue developing because:
Contexts change: What worked previously may not work in new situations. Continued development addresses evolving challenges.
Capability has layers: Basic leadership differs from advanced leadership. Development continues across career stages.
Blind spots persist: Even effective leaders have areas for growth. Fresh perspectives reveal continued development opportunities.
Best leaders keep growing: Research shows the most effective leaders maintain development throughout careers. Complacency undermines sustained effectiveness.
Value calculation involves:
Direct costs: Programme fees, travel, materials—quantifiable expenses.
Opportunity costs: Time away from work and other activities—often larger than direct costs.
Potential returns: Career advancement, improved effectiveness, avoided failures, enhanced satisfaction—harder to quantify but often substantial.
Risk assessment: What's the cost of not developing? Stalled careers, leadership failures, and reduced effectiveness represent development's alternative.
Research suggests development returns typically exceed costs when participants engage fully and apply learning. Poor engagement or blocked application undermines returns.
Maximise value through:
Before:
During:
After:
Avoid these value destroyers:
Passive attendance: Attending without engaging. Courses reward what participants invest.
Disclosure avoidance: Hiding real challenges and struggles. Genuine development requires honest engagement.
Application delay: Returning to work without applying learning. Delay erodes impact.
Isolation return: Letting peer connections fade. Networks provide ongoing value.
Completion mindset: Treating programme completion as development completion. Continued growth sustains impact.
Context blame: Attributing application failure entirely to unsupportive context. Personal responsibility enables progress despite constraints.
Take a leadership course when you face leadership challenges that experience alone isn't adequately addressing, when you're transitioning to new leadership responsibilities, when feedback indicates development needs, or when career advancement requires demonstrated leadership capability. Courses provide structured learning, diverse perspectives, safe practice, honest feedback, and professional networks that experience and self-study rarely provide.
Leadership courses work when they address genuine needs, are delivered by quality providers, are engaged with fully, and are followed by application in real contexts. Research indicates significant returns through improved leadership effectiveness. Courses fail when selection is poor, engagement is passive, or application is blocked. Participant commitment significantly affects outcomes.
You can develop leadership capability through courses, though courses work best combined with experience. Courses provide frameworks, skills practice, feedback, and perspectives that accelerate development. Experience provides context and practice. Neither alone maximises development. Courses develop particular aspects—communication, feedback, delegation, strategic thinking—more effectively than experience alone typically provides.
You likely need leadership development if: you're facing leadership challenges you don't know how to address, you've received feedback suggesting development areas, your career has plateaued despite ambition, you're transitioning to new leadership responsibilities, or you feel less effective than you should be. Self-assessment, 360-degree feedback, and honest reflection help identify development needs.
Leadership training purposes include: building specific leadership capabilities, preparing for transitions to new roles, addressing identified development gaps, accelerating career progression, providing credentials demonstrating capability, building professional networks, and gaining perspectives beyond current context. The specific purpose should guide programme selection.
The best time for leadership courses includes: before major transitions when preparation prevents problems, when specific capability gaps have been identified, when career advancement requires demonstrated development, when feedback has highlighted development needs, or when renewed perspective and energy are needed. Avoid times when other pressures preclude genuine engagement.
Leadership course costs range widely—from hundreds of pounds for short workshops to tens of thousands for executive education to over £100,000 for comprehensive degree programmes. Cost should be evaluated against expected value, not just absolute amount. Free or cheap options may deliver less value than premium investments. Total cost includes time and opportunity cost alongside fees.
Why take a leadership course? Because leadership capability responds to deliberate development, because experience alone teaches incompletely, because structured programmes accelerate learning, because feedback environments illuminate blind spots, because peer networks provide ongoing value, and because demonstrated development supports career progression.
Not everyone needs leadership courses. But those facing leadership challenges, transitioning to new responsibilities, seeking career advancement, or receiving feedback indicating development needs often find structured development provides returns that experience and self-study cannot match.
Decide deliberately. Choose programmes matching genuine needs. Engage fully when participating. Apply learning immediately. Continue developing throughout your career.
Leadership matters. Deliberate development serves leadership effectiveness. The organisations you lead and the people you serve deserve your continued growth.
Develop deliberately. Lead effectively. Continue growing.