Three Trillion Dollars Later: Why Leadership Training Still Fails to Deliver Measurable Change

Over the last 25 years, organisations have invested more than $3.7 trillion in leadership development.

With an investment of that magnitude, we should be seeing dramatic improvements in performance, engagement, and project success.

But we haven’t.

• 70% of projects still fail
• 66% of employees remain disengaged
• Leadership capability, at scale, has not meaningfully improved

If leadership development were working, these numbers would look very different.
They haven’t moved in 25 years.

Why?

Because most leadership training is built on a fundamentally flawed understanding of what leadership actually is.

⭐ We’ve Spent Trillions Teaching Leaders the Wrong Things

What the industry actually teaches: Independent research from Deloitte, ATD, McKinsey, and LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report shows that the most requested and most delivered leadership training topics worldwide are:

• emotional intelligence
• authenticity
• vulnerability
• executive presence
• inspirational communication
• storytelling
• empathy

These topics dominate leadership investment every single year.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth:

**In 25+ years as a turnaround expert inside Fortune 100 companies, I have never seen a project fail because the leader lacked authenticity, vulnerability, or charisma.

Not once.**

I have seen highly authentic leaders fail.
I have seen emotionally intelligent leaders fail.
I have seen charismatic leaders fail.

Because none of these traits determine whether a team can succeed.

And the data supports this.

⭐ The #1 Reason Teams Fail: They Were Not Set Up for Success

How do we know?

Because the evidence is overwhelming:

• 75% of the time when projects fail, the team says they knew on day one it would fail.

• That’s not a vulnerability issue.
• It’s not an authenticity issue.
• It’s not a storytelling or charisma issue.

It’s a leadership design issue.

• Gallup reports that 85% of employees hold back discretionary effort when they believe they cannot succeed.

People don’t disengage because they’re lazy.
People disengage because they know they’ve been placed in an unwinnable situation.

And when success is not achievable, it kills:

• belief
• engagement
• confidence
• optimism
• momentum

This is not a people problem.
This is not a talent problem.

⭐ **This is a leadership problem.

The conditions for success simply weren’t there.**

⭐ When Projects Collapse, the Pattern Is Brutally Consistent

Every failing project I’ve been brought into shared the same underlying issues:

• goals weren’t clear
• the work was too complex
• resources were insufficient
• ownership was weak
• timelines were unrealistic
• priorities kept shifting
• progress was invisible
• blockers weren’t removed
• no one knew what “good” looked like

Teams could see the truth from day one:

They had been set up to fail.

Once belief collapses, engagement collapses.
Once engagement collapses, performance collapses.

It is predictable — and completely avoidable.

⭐ The Leadership Industry Gets the Sequence Backwards

The industry teaches:

Inspire people → they become motivated → they succeed.

But that’s not how performance actually works.

Here’s what really happens:

1. Make success achievable

2. People see they can win

3. Belief ignites

4. Effort increases

5. Momentum accelerates

6. Results follow

7. Inspiration becomes the natural byproduct

This leads to the principle that should sit at the centre of every leadership programme:

⭐ **“People don’t achieve because they’re inspired.

They become inspired because success feels achievable.”**

This is the reversal the leadership industry has missed for 25 years.

⭐ If Leadership Training Worked, the Data Would Prove It

$3.7 trillion later, we should be seeing:

• higher engagement
• fewer failing projects
• simpler execution
• more predictable outcomes
• stronger accountability
• less overwhelm

Instead, everything is flat.

Why?

Because we’ve focused on shaping the leader’s persona
instead of shaping the conditions their teams work in.

We’ve trained confidence and vulnerability…
but not clarity, simplicity, or execution.

We’ve developed leaders emotionally…
but not operationally.

⭐ The Solution: Teach Leaders How to Engineer Success

This is where the FAST Framework comes in — originally developed to rescue failing projects, now used to develop successful leaders.

FAST provides the four conditions people need to succeed:

F — Focus

Are we working on the right things?
If effort is high but progress is low, focus is broken.

A — Accountability

Do people own outcomes?
If activity is low and follow-through is weak, accountability is missing.

S — Simplicity

Is the work simple enough to execute confidently?
If people are struggling to take action, the work isn’t understood well enough — or hasn’t been simplified enough to feel doable.

T — Transparency

Can we see progress clearly?
If progress is invisible, belief collapses.

FAST is not motivational theory.
FAST is a practical system for removing blockers and making success achievable.

And when success becomes achievable:

• belief rises
• engagement returns
• confidence grows
• pace increases
• momentum builds
• results become inevitable

People don’t need to be inspired.
They inspire themselves once success becomes possible.

⭐ Three Trillion Dollars Later: It’s Time to Stop Teaching Leadership That Doesn’t Work

If leadership development keeps focusing on charisma, emotional intelligence, and inspirational theatre while ignoring the conditions required for success, nothing will change.

If we want measurable improvements in performance, engagement, and project delivery, leadership training must shift to the only thing that has ever created sustainable high performance:

Setting people up to succeed.

Leadership is not about being inspiring.
Leadership is about making success achievable.

When leaders do that:

• people believe
• people engage
• people accelerate
• people deliver
• people win

And when people win, organisations win.