Remember this time last year when your organization was planning for 2025? How did you predict the year would unfold? What challenges did you anticipate for your leaders? And how did your predictions compare to the reality of what actually happened?
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The disconnect between how fast business moves and how slowly most leadership programs adapt has become a pressing problem for L&D leaders. DDI has found that less than one-quarter of HR organizations emphasize future-focused skills like setting strategy and managing change. It’s challenging to think about what leadership development should look like for your organization in the coming year when the only thing we can say for certain about 2026 is that rapid transformation will continue.
As we were developing our New Lens® learning platform, we quickly realized traditional leadership development didn’t fit today's business environment and that we needed to create something different. Since then, we’ve seen New Lens deliver real results for our clients, even in times of intense disruption.
If unanticipated changes made your 2025 programs feel outdated by midyear, it’s time to shift your thinking for 2026. You can deliver leadership development that adapts to the twists and turns. And here’s how it can take shape.
The Hidden Cost of ‘Content Dump’ Programs
Most traditional leadership programs operate on a “content dump” model. The assumption is that leaders need to be filled up with knowledge in advance. Attend the three-day offsite. Absorb the frameworks. Complete the case studies. Return to work fully equipped.
This approach assumes you can predict what leaders will need to know months from now. It assumes your business strategy will remain relatively stable, and that the leadership challenges your participants face in Month 1 will still be relevant in Month 12.
But in today's business environment, these are dangerous assumptions.
Think about what your leaders are actually navigating: Hybrid work arrangements require entirely new management approaches. AI tools are transforming how work gets done faster than anyone can keep up with. Leaders must make rapid decisions while trying to keep everyone engaged through constant change.
Your leadership program was designed for a different game than the one being played.
Enter the Agile Alternative
But what if your leadership program could adapt as quickly as your business does? What if instead of frontloading content, you could help leaders build skills progressively while applying them in real time?
This is where agile methodology transforms leadership development. Agile means iterative, responsive, and built for constant change. Instead of dumping content all at once, you help leaders quickly absorb concepts, apply them, experiment, and refine their approach—all while ideas build on each other in a structured progression.
Josh Bersin, one of the world's leading HR analysts, has been championing this shift for years. In his research on building agile organizations, Bersin emphasizes that agile organizations “evolve their strategy but deepen it where they have strength.” Management is “thin, hands-on, and highly engaged. And people and teams are constantly learning.”
The key word there is “constantly.” Not annually. Not quarterly. Constantly.
More recently, Bersin's research on why leadership development feels broken points to the core issue: When companies redefine their business models every few years, creating new organizational structures and designing solutions around data and customer experience, traditional “long-form” leadership development simply doesn't keep up.
Learn-Apply-Experiment
The “content dump” model breaks down when the challenges leaders face tomorrow look nothing like the ones you prepared them for yesterday.
Agile development recognizes that modern leaders need ongoing support navigating constant change. They don’t need three days of content downloaded at once. They need the right insight at the right moment. They need connection with peers facing similar challenges. They need space to try something, reflect on what happened, and adjust their approach.
This is the learn-apply-experiment approach. Ideas still build on each other in a logical sequence, but the emphasis shifts from passive absorption to active application. Leaders learn by doing, supported by:
Micro-learning that fits into the flow of work. Not all-day workshops that pull people away from their teams, but two- to seven-minute lessons they can access on their phones between meetings. Research shows employees have an average of just 24 minutes per week for dedicated learning, typically interrupted every three minutes. Leadership development has to meet people where they are.
Peer cohorts for real-time problem-solving and accountability. When priorities shift mid-quarter, leaders don’t have to wait until the next module to discuss how to respond. They’re already in regular conversation with peers navigating similar challenges.
Immediate relevance. Let’s be real: The idea of learning something they aren’t sure they will ever use is not very motivating for your leaders. With the learn-apply-experiment approach, leaders can learn something today, put it into action this week and then reflect on what happened with others during their cohort’s meeting.
Agile Leadership Development in Practice
So what does agile leadership development actually look like when you implement it? We designed New Lens around features like these:
Content stays nimble. You maintain core leadership principles—the foundational strategies that consistently drive results—while keeping application examples flexible. When your organization announces a major restructuring, you don’t need to redesign the entire program. You adjust the real-world scenarios and discussion questions your leaders are working through.
Implementation adapts to organizational reality. Programs can launch with cohorts who progress together, or operate on an open-enrollment basis where individuals start when they need it. Content gets selected to fit specific organizational needs before the program begins, but can be adjusted as those needs evolve.
Learning integrates with real work constraints. Just five minutes a day or 30 minutes a week. Accessible on mobile devices, wherever leaders are working. Built around how work actually happens rather than requiring people to stop working in order to learn.
Feedback loops operate continuously. Regular cohort check-ins where leaders discuss real challenges they’re facing. Manager involvement through progress dashboards and discussion guides. Action plans that leaders customize for their actual situations and can update as circumstances change.
This approach addresses what Bersin identifies as the critical need for “learning in the flow of work”—providing employees with the information they need, when they need it, without interrupting their work processes.
What Will Your Leaders Need in 2026?
How will your leadership development programs respond to the change and disruption in 2026? Remember, we're here to help. If you'd like to talk more about New Lens or our other products and services, like executive coaching, just drop me a note.
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