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What Is Leadership Development?

Leadership development is the deliberate building of people’s ability to lead — current managers and future leaders.

An educational definition from the HR glossary. Explore related terms below, or jump into the resource center to go deeper.

Definition

Leadership development is the deliberate building of people’s ability to lead — current managers and future leaders.

Why it matters

Management quality drives engagement and performance across whole teams.

Examples

Illustrative example. Supporting a new manager with coaching and real responsibility develops leadership.

For the practical detail behind this term, follow the related metric, template and resources below.

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Templates, checklists and calculators to put these concepts into practice — free and ungated.

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For informational purposes only. This is an educational, plain-language definition — not legal, tax, financial or compliance advice and not an official definition. Terms and obligations vary by organisation and jurisdiction. Numeric examples are simple, placeholder-based illustrations, not data. Confirm specifics with qualified professionals.
Related concepts

Related glossary terms

Keep exploring the HR vocabulary.

Glossary

Succession Planning

Succession planning is preparing for changes in critical roles by identifying them and developing potential successors.

Open Glossary

Employee Development

Employee development is the deliberate building of people’s skills and capability in their current role.

Open Glossary

Coaching

Coaching is helping someone improve by asking questions and giving feedback rather than giving answers.

Open
Measure it

Related metrics & calculators

HR metric

Employee Development Metrics

Employee development metrics describe how people grow inside the organisation.

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HR calculators

Quantify the metrics in your browser.

Open Hub

HR metrics hub

How HR measures are defined and read.

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Put it into practice

Related templates

Template

Employee Development Plan Template

A development plan turns “grow this person” into something concrete.

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Go deeper

Related resources

The clusters that put this concept into practice.

Lifecycle

Employee lifecycle

The full employee journey, stage by stage.

Open Operations

Employer operations

Run the workforce as a repeatable system.

Open Planning

Workforce planning

Strategy and organizational design.

Open Compliance

HR compliance

Documentation, records, data and policy.

Open Templates

HR templates

Free, printable, placeholder-based templates.

Open Playbooks

HR playbooks

Step-by-step plays for people processes.

Open Technology

HR technology

Automation, analytics and systems.

Open Funnel

Recruitment funnel

Sourcing through to accepted offer.

Open Reporting

HR reporting & dashboards

Turn people data into clear views.

Open AI for HR

AI for HR

Where AI assists HR, responsibly.

Open Resource center

HR resource center

The central map of every cluster.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is Leadership Development?

Leadership development is the deliberate building of people’s ability to lead — current managers and future leaders.

Why does Leadership Development matter?

Management quality drives engagement and performance across whole teams.

How is Leadership Development measured?

It connects to the HR metric linked on this page, where you can find the formula and how to read it. This glossary entry is an educational definition, not a data source.