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A facilitator leading a small cohort of managers in a leadership development session

Leadership development built on what your employees actually said.

Build the skills your employees say they need from their leaders. Practical, facilitated programs turn your workforce feedback into development for every career stage, from new professionals to executives.

Talk About a Program Discover the Programs

Most people are promoted into management because they were good at the job before it. Managing people is a different job, and almost no one is trained for it. Employees notice and in our data, they leave.

What this is

Insight first. Then development that answers it.

Leadership Insight is what the research tells us about your managers: how employees rate them, what specifically they mean (communication, knowledge and skills, professional behavior, support) and where the gaps cluster by unit and level. Leadership Development is what we do about it: facilitated, cohort-based sessions for the people who influence others, with accountability between sessions so the learning shows up on the job.

The curriculum is evergreen and behavior-driven. What is tailored is the selection. If your feedback says managers avoid difficult conversations, that is where the cohort spends its time. If it does not, we skip it.

Who it's for

Organizations whose research (ours or their own) points at manager behavior; leaders responsible for developing a bench of new supervisors; and executive teams who want development that can be traced back to a workforce result rather than a satisfaction score.

  • Four tracks by career stage, plus custom programs
  • Monthly sessions typically over about eight months, or à la carte
  • Group or individual delivered inside your organization
  • Since 2011 career issues have been the number one reason people give for leaving
The programs

Four tracks, by career stage.

Leadership is behavior, not title. Each track develops the behaviors that matter at that stage and each one can be shaped around your workforce data.

Early-Career Professionalism

New professionals and individual contributors

The habits that make someone worth promoting: communication, accountability, working across a team, and managing themselves before they manage anyone else.

  • Professional communication and presence
  • Accountability and follow-through
  • Working effectively in teams
Talk about a programRead: Why first-year attrition starts pre-hire

Emerging Leaders

First-time and soon-to-be managers

The skills needed to lead effectively from day one of the new role. This is the transition most organizations leave to chance, and the one our data says employees pay for.

  • From peer to manager
  • Coaching, feedback, and difficult conversations
  • Situational leadership
Talk about a programSee how we develop better managers

Leaders of the Workforce

Current managers and supervisors

For the people already leading teams: the behaviors employees rate most (communication, knowledge and skills, professional behavior, support) and how to build a team that stays.

  • Manager effectiveness and professional behavior
  • Conflict, change, and accountability
  • Retention-focused management
Talk about a programRead: Engagement is a choice, not a metric

Executive Leadership

Senior leaders and executive teams

Strategy, culture, and the leadership decisions that shape the workforce, informed by what your own employees have told us about the organization they work for.

  • Leading through change
  • Building a cohesive leadership team
  • Workforce strategy and accountability
Talk about a programExplore the EmployER Engagement book

Need something outside the four tracks? Custom programs and corporate retreat seminars are built the same way: from the evergreen curriculum, selected around your data.

Talk About a Program
The program at a glance

Learn today. Apply tomorrow. Report back next month.

Facilitated, experiential sessions with accountability between them, not passive instruction. Cohorts practice a behavior, take it back to their teams, and return to a facilitator and peers who expect to hear how it went.

  • Cohort programs inside your organization
    Groups of managers who share a context, meeting monthly over roughly eight months. The most common format.
  • Individual development
    One-to-one coaching and development for a specific leader or a small number of them.
  • In person, with virtual options
    Sessions are typically delivered on site. Virtual delivery is available for distributed teams. Ask us what fits.
  • Online modules to reinforce
    Custom online learning through our publishing partners, targeted at the competencies the cohort is working on.
Topics we teach 30+ evergreen modules. We select and sequence them from your employee feedback. A cohort might use twelve.
  • Communication and active listening
  • Coaching and mentoring
  • Difficult conversations
  • Conflict management
  • Accountability
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Situational leadership
  • Strengths-based leadership
  • Managing change
  • Decision-making
  • Effective meetings
  • Presentation skills
  • Manager professionalism
  • Behaviors of a cohesive team
  • Building and growing a diverse workforce
  • Retention-focused management

Not sure which topics your managers need? That is exactly what the research answers and what the first conversation is for.

Talk About a Program
How it works

From what employees said to what managers do.

  1. Insight

    Start with the feedback.

    Your exit, stay, or assessment data (ours or your own) shows which manager behaviors employees name and where they cluster. That is the brief.

  2. Design

    Build the cohort around it.

    We choose the track, select the modules the data calls for, and set the cadence. Topics your organization does not need are left out.

  3. Develop

    Facilitate, apply, hold accountable.

    Monthly sessions with practice between them. Facilitators and peers expect to hear what each manager tried and what happened.

  4. Measure

    Ask employees again.

    A pulse or the next assessment shows whether manager ratings (and the reasons behind them) moved.

Cohorts run when they are confirmed, not before. We will tell you what it takes to get one on the calendar.
Why Work Institute

Development that starts from evidence, not from a catalog.

  • Grounded in real employee feedback

    We are a research firm first. The cohort is built from what your employees told us about their managers, so the program addresses the conditions leaders are actually being asked to improve.

  • Facilitated learning that sticks

    Experienced facilitators, peer learning, and accountability between sessions. Managers practice a behavior, apply it, and report back. That is how behavior changes.

  • Behavior-driven, not title-driven

    Anyone who influences others is a leader. Programs develop behaviors, which is why they work for a first-time supervisor and an executive team alike.

  • Measured by the workforce, not a survey of attendees

    The test of a development program is not whether managers enjoyed it. It is whether their employees rate them differently next time we ask.

Development is the Act step of the same three-step approach we bring to every workforce question.

See the full approach 
Your questions, answered

What leaders ask before they commit to a program.

“Do we need to do the research first?”

No. Development is available on its own, and if you already have interview or survey data (from us or anyone else) we will build the cohort from that. The research simply makes sure the program is aimed at the right behaviors.

See Voice-of-Employee Research
“Our managers have been through training before.”

Most have, and it was probably a course, not a program. This is monthly, applied, and accountable, and the topics come from what their own teams said. Managers can tell the difference quickly.

See the program at a glance
“How do we justify the investment?”

In our data, improving how employees perceive their manager increases how long they stay. Career growth and manager behavior lead the reasons people leave. Run the cost of the turnover you have now, and the program's return is usually easy to see.

Run the Cost of Turnover numbers
Proof, adjacent to the claim

When managers changed, the workforce noticed.

View all case studies 
Dialysis network
+10 pts
employees rating their supervisor 'excellent'

Supervisors were trained to build action plans on their own workforce results, with a target for fair-and-poor responses. Turnover halved over four years.

Read the case study 
Health system
−34%
first-year nursing turnover

Exit interviews pointed at unit leadership. The system realigned supervision, strategically replaced underperforming nurse managers, and rebuilt onboarding and first-year turnover fell across departments.

Read the case study 
Children's hospital
Supervisor →
no longer the top reason people gave for leaving

Unit-level action plans built from more than 4,000 exit interviews shifted departure reasons away from supervisors and cut critical-role turnover by as much as a third.

Read the case study 

Employees want to be developed, and they want to be developed by good managers. Management is not an inherited skill. It is a trained one.

The Work Institute belief
The next step

Tell us about your managers. We'll tell you what a program would look like.

One conversation about your leaders, your feedback, and what you want to change. You will leave knowing which track fits, roughly how it would be shaped and scheduled, and what we have seen work in organizations like yours.

  • Scoped to your leaders Track, format, cadence, and the topics your data points to.
  • A practitioner, not a rep You will talk with the people who design and facilitate the programs.
  • No proposal unless you ask for one If a program makes sense, we will say so. If the research should come first, we will say that too.

Talk about a leadership program

We reply within one business day. No automated sequence.

We don't sell or share your information, and you won't be added to a drip campaign.