What is wrong with leadership training and development and what is needed to fix it?

Michael Beer and his colleagues identified several common organizational situations that prevent transfer of training in organizations. They identify six such situations that they label the "silent killers": (1) unclear organizational priorities and strategies; (2) lack of commitment to change by upper management; (3) a reluctance to allow honest discussions of problems; (4) lack of coordination across different elements of the organization; (5) inability to identify and nurture talented individuals; and (6) manager's reluctance to tell the truth about barriers to behaviour change on the job.
It is traditional to believe that the cause of individual performance issues lies within the individual and so it is reasonable and logical for the individual to be the focus and the target for change. That view has dominated the practice of leadership training in organizations. However, the six silent killers suggest that the target for change should be the organization, not the individual. Beer and his colleagues suggest that leadership training and development needs to be tied to organizational development efforts. Top leadership should be clear as to its priorities and strategies and it needs to champion change and adopt policies that enable and encourage frank and honest discussions of performance problems. Senior management needs to be directly involved with the development of leadership. In addition, HR needs to provide more than a list of static classes. It needs to accept some responsibility for the transfer of skills to the job. HR needs to carefully assess training needs and ensure congruency between the behaviours it trains and the acceptability of these skills to local management. Trainers also need to recognize that the display of newly learned behaviours can be difficult and providing on the job support helps. Help lines, job aides, and mentoring and coaching can all enhance the chance of transfer. Both HR and senior management need to better understand the larger role they need to play in the development leadership.