Stop Asking for Training When What Your Team Needs Is Leadership

Aug 28

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Wes Love | CultureStoke

“I’d like to have you come in and do a training for my team.”

It’s not an uncommon request given my line of work, but I am amazed at how often I am asked to come in and provide training to “fix” a performance issue on a team. In many cases, I come to find out it’s one or two people on the team.

Training serves a very important role in organizations. Most organizations could use more emphasis on training and development. The development gap is real: fewer than half of U.S. employees received job-related training in 2024, and fewer than half strongly believe they have the skills to be exceptional.

Look, as someone who delivers training as part of my portfolio, I am a huge proponent for training. It is a great way to boost morale, build skills, and introduce new knowledge.

You know what it is not great for? Addressing performance issues.

If the issue is “they don’t know how,” training may help.

If the issue is “they know how, but aren’t doing it,” training is probably not the fix. That is leadership work.

Unfortunately, training (and process improvement) are often used to address performance issues, but that's not their purpose. They can certainly play a role in addressing performance issues, but they are not a fix. So let's talk about why training doesn’t fix performance issues, how leaders unintentionally undermine behavior change, and what you can do to really set people up to be successful.

Why training (alone) doesn’t fix performance issues

Beyond not getting the results we covet so dearly, most performance issues have less to do with how the work is executed and more to do with how the work gets done. This is why training doesn’t work to fix that. Training is great for showing people how you’d like things done, but training is an intensity exercise. Meaning it is done once in a controlled environment and lives much more in the ideal state than the current one.

Performance issues are addressed by consistency exercises. Some examples include 1-on-1 meetings, performance discussions, and how leaders model behavior (more on this in a bit).

Behavior does not change automatically when presented with new options or even new expectations. It takes continuous reminders and accountability. New behaviors do not become automatic just because people have heard the message once. Research on habit formation suggests that behavior change can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days, which is why training needs more than attendance. It needs:

Clarity (what it looks like to be successful),
repetition (repeated reminders about the expectation),
coaching (engagement from their direct supervisor specific to the change in behavior),
reinforcement (gratitude for doing it well, performance discussions when they are not meeting expectations),
and time (looking for increased momentum towards change, understanding it’s not going to happen overnight).

So, while training can (and often does) play a small part in addressing performance issues, how people are led will play a much larger role.

How Leaders Help or Hurt Changing Behavior

There are a lot of ways leaders unintentionally contribute to behaviors not changing.

Being unwilling to have the hard conversations (conflict avoidance).
Allowing poor cultural behavior to persist because the outcome is good (ends justify the means).
Too busy managing to lead (misaligned priorities).

But the one that has been most pervasive in my experience is leaders not realizing how much their example sets the tone for the rest of the team. “Rules for thee, not for me,” leadership as I like to call it.

There seems to be some systemic cognitive dissonance with many leaders who don’t realize that one of the most significant responsibilities of leadership is that of leading by example.

“I don’t want my people responding to emails when they are sick or on vacation.”

Do you do that?

“I want my teams to work collaboratively with each other.”

How collaboratively do you work with other leaders?

“Attitude reflects leadership” is one of my favorite quotes of all time. If you are having individual and/or team dynamic issues, the first place leaders should look in the mirror. People take their cues from their leaders because you’re their leader. Even deeper still…

What you find interesting, your people will find fascinating.

This means not only will your team emulate your behavior, but they will do it louder and more often.

“Well, I don’t expect my team to do that…”

Here is the problem with that thinking.

On the surface level, you’re the boss. You were promoted for behaving a certain way. You are still a physical representation of what behavior they think gets people rewarded. So even if you aren’t their leader, you are still an example to be followed if they want their career to progress.

Even deeper still, let's say they look to you as their leader. Someone they choose to follow because you inspire them. They are going to want to show you, and they will typically do so by behaving like a turned-up version of you.

Leaders, if you are wondering why you can’t seem to get your people to change their behavior? Sometimes the first, best place to look is in the mirror.

What you can (and should) do to change behavior

I won’t belabor the point, but the first and most obvious step is making sure you are not the example of the behavior you are trying to change. Keep in mind that your people are watching you every second of every minute they are around you, to get clues and insights about what success looks like. So make sure you are treating people well, solving problems well, and communicating the way you want them to communicate. You know - Culture.

Next, make sure your expectations are clearly communicated, collectively understood, and mutually agreed to. This means communicating it early and often (to the point of near absurdity). Showing gratitude for people who are behaving the way you want, and addressing the behaviors when they don’t.

Remember, every behavior you don’t want to see but are unwilling to address becomes acceptable by default.

Lastly, I have said it before, and I will continue to say it, hard work and harder conversations do not get better with age. Don’t wait to address poor individual and team behavior until it becomes unbearable. Pick up the shovel when the pile is small, or whatever metaphor resonates with you. If you wait, the impact of the ripple effects on other team members is hard to even quantify.

32.4% of employees who quit a job in 2024 said the leading reason was a toxic or negative work environment. That ranked above poor leadership, dissatisfaction with a manager, and pay. I’ll let you do your own research on the cost of replacing good talent that walks out the door.

Final Thoughts

What you tolerate will persist. Even if the outcomes are great, the means and culture should arguably matter more.

Training is a tool. A good one. But it is not a substitute for leadership.

Use training when skills need to be built, processes need to be learned, or people need shared language. But when the issue is behavior, consistency, accountability, or culture, leaders have to stay in the work after the training ends.

A few tips for the road:

Make what good looks like obvious.
Recognize the people doing the right things, rightly.
Have the conversation before the pile gets too big.
And don’t underestimate how much your example is already training the team, whether you meant it to or not.

You’ve got this.