We Talk a Lot About Developing Leaders. But What Are We Actually Developing Them to Do?

Leadership development is everywhere.

Workshops. Coaching. Internal programs. Qualifications. On-the-job experience.

All can play an important role.

But underneath all of them sits a more fundamental question:

When we say we're developing a leader, what are we actually expecting that person to become better at doing?

Not simply what should they know, or what leadership concepts should they understand.

What should they actually be able to do?

Because leadership and management are practical responsibilities. Managers have to lead people, manage performance, build effective teams, communicate and influence, make decisions, solve problems and take responsibility for business outcomes.

Ultimately, the question is whether that development builds capability for those responsibilities.

What does that look like through a Diploma of Leadership and Management?

The BSB50420 Diploma of Leadership and Management provides a useful way of answering that question.

Across its 12 units, the Diploma develops and assesses leadership and management capability across a broad range of responsibilities.

Participants don't achieve the Diploma simply by knowing what good leadership looks like.

They have to demonstrate what they can do.

That includes managing individual and team performance, communicating and negotiating with stakeholders, dealing with workplace relationships and conflict, developing operational plans, managing budgets and financial plans, managing risk and leading continuous improvement.

Look at those requirements together and something important becomes apparent.

Management isn't one skill.

And it rarely happens one responsibility at a time.

After more than 30 years leading teams and businesses, that's one of the things I've learned about management. You're dealing with a performance issue while trying to hit a budget, keep the team focused, manage a stakeholder and make a decision without all the information you'd like.

The people responsibilities and the business responsibilities arrive together.

That's what makes the capability behind the Diploma interesting.

Six interconnected areas of management capability

The 12 units can be understood through six broader areas of capability: lead self, lead people, lead teams, communicate and influence, manage the business, and lead thinking and improvement.

But these aren't six separate boxes.

They overlap constantly in the real work of management.

Lead self

Before a manager can effectively lead other people, they need some understanding of how they themselves operate.

That includes self-awareness, emotional intelligence, adaptability and judgement. It means recognising how your behaviour affects other people, understanding your own emotional responses and being able to adjust when circumstances require it.

Within the Diploma, participants don't simply study emotional intelligence. They examine their own emotional strengths and weaknesses, identify triggers, seek feedback and demonstrate how they respond to the emotions and behaviours of others.

The point isn't to know the terminology.

It's to become more capable of managing yourself while managing others.

Lead people

This is where management can change significantly for someone who has been promoted because they're good at what they do.

Technical competence doesn't automatically prepare someone to set expectations, give difficult feedback, coach another person, recognise strong performance or deal with underperformance.

Those responsibilities require a different set of capabilities.

The Diploma makes them practical. Participants are required to manage the performance of individuals and a team, including setting expectations, assessing performance, providing feedback and coaching, and responding when performance needs to improve.

That's an important distinction.

Managing performance isn't something a manager only needs to understand. It's something they need to be able to do.

Lead teams

A collection of capable individuals doesn't automatically become an effective team.

Someone has to create clarity around purpose, roles, expectations and accountability. Someone also has to notice when the team isn't working effectively and do something about it.

Through the Diploma, participants are required to manage the effectiveness of a work team. That involves establishing performance expectations and KPIs, supporting participation and decision-making, creating accountability, providing feedback and addressing performance problems.

What that tells us is that team leadership isn't simply about motivating people.

It also requires structure, clarity and accountability.

Communicate and influence

Communication is sometimes treated as a softer management capability.

In practice, managers use it to get things done.

They have to listen, question, explain, present, negotiate, understand different positions and work towards outcomes with people who may not initially agree.

That's why the Diploma requires participants to lead and participate in meetings, present to different groups, negotiate towards agreed outcomes and demonstrate active listening, questioning and clarification.

Communication in management isn't simply about being a good communicator.

It's about being able to move work, decisions and relationships forward through other people.

Manage the business

This is an important part of management that can sometimes get lost in conversations about leadership.

Leadership isn't only about leading people.

Managers may also need to translate organisational objectives into plans, allocate resources, work within budgets, monitor performance, manage risk and respond when results move off track.

The Diploma reflects that responsibility. Participants are required to develop and manage an operational plan, manage a budget and financial plan across a reporting period, and lead a business risk-management process.

That's not separate from leadership.

It's part of taking responsibility for an area of a business.

Lead thinking and improvement

A manager who has to provide every answer can quickly become the bottleneck for an entire team.

Part of leadership is helping other people become better at analysing problems, challenging assumptions, generating ideas and making decisions.

The Diploma therefore includes developing critical and creative thinking in others, as well as leading continuous-improvement processes that encourage people to contribute ideas, learn from performance and identify ways of working better.

There's a broader management idea underneath that requirement.

Developing a team isn't only about improving what people do. It's also about improving how they think.

Effective management requires both sides

When you put those six areas together, I think one of the most useful ways to understand management emerges.

It requires both:

The human capability to lead people and teams.

And the business capability to take responsibility for performance, resources, risk and improvement.

A manager can be excellent with people but struggle to translate business objectives into plans, manage resources, understand financial performance or control risk.

Equally, someone can be operationally excellent but struggle to set expectations, coach people, manage underperformance, resolve conflict or influence stakeholders.

Effective management requires both.

And importantly, managers don't get to choose which side turns up on Tuesday morning.

A people issue can become an operational issue.

A budget decision can affect a team.

A stakeholder problem can require negotiation, judgement and commercial thinking at the same time.

That's why developing management capability is broader than developing a collection of individual leadership skills.

The capabilities have to work together.

Learning about leadership isn't the same as demonstrating it

There is another important distinction at the heart of the Diploma.

Participants don't achieve the BSB50420 Diploma of Leadership and Management simply by learning leadership and management theory.

They must apply their learning and demonstrate what they can do through practical assessment.

There is a significant difference between understanding what good management looks like and being able to demonstrate it.

A participant might understand the principles of performance management. The assessment requires them to go further by setting expectations, assessing performance, providing feedback and coaching, developing an improvement plan and responding to underperformance.

The same principle applies across team leadership and business management. Participants establish roles and KPIs, create accountability and address performance problems. They develop and manage an operational plan, manage a financial plan across a reporting period and lead a risk-management process.

The Diploma requires participants to demonstrate these capabilities, not simply describe them.

Across the qualification, participants are required to plan, produce, apply and demonstrate management activities and behaviours.

Applying the learning to real management

With Connect Business Academy, participants can choose to relate their learning and assessment to their own role and workplace.

That matters because management capability makes more sense when it is connected to the situations, responsibilities and challenges managers actually encounter.

Where a participant doesn't have access to a suitable workplace or particular workplace situation, assessment can also take place in a simulated environment reflecting realistic workplace conditions.

Either way, the practical requirement remains:

Participants must provide the evidence required by the assessment.

Why does this capability matter?

There is good reason to focus on what managers can actually do.

Australian HR Institute research published in March 2026 found that 36% of respondents considered managers not proficient in problem-solving, 35% in team development and people management, and 31% in strategic leadership.

At the same time, organisations identified these capabilities as important to achieving organisational goals: 43% identified problem-solving, 39% team development and people management, and 39% strategic leadership.

That evidence doesn't tell us that completing a Diploma will automatically make someone a better manager.

Nor does it demonstrate that a Diploma will automatically improve engagement, retention, productivity or organisational performance.

It does show why developing practical capability in areas such as people management, problem-solving and leadership remains relevant to Australian organisations.

What could this mean for an organisation?

For organisations, the opportunity is to develop these capabilities deliberately across current and emerging leaders, rather than leaving leadership capability to develop by chance.

That doesn't require replacing development already in place.

An organisation can continue its existing internal programs, workshops, coaching and other development while using Connect Business Academy's BSB50420 Diploma of Leadership and Management as an additional development option for suitable current and emerging leaders.

It might be one manager, a group of frontline managers or part of a broader approach to developing future leaders.

The program is flexible, online and self-paced, allowing participants to undertake their development alongside their existing responsibilities.

Successful completion leads to the nationally recognised BSB50420 Diploma of Leadership and Management.

But the qualification isn't where the value proposition starts.

The Diploma is the recognised outcome. The deeper value is the capability participants are required to develop, apply and demonstrate to achieve it.

Develop practical leadership and management capability

Connect Business Academy's BSB50420 Diploma of Leadership and Management is designed for managers and leaders who want to develop, apply and demonstrate practical capability across the people and business responsibilities of management.

The program is online, flexible and self-paced, allowing participants to undertake their development alongside their existing work responsibilities.

Explore the Diploma of Leadership and Management

For organisations looking to develop current or emerging leaders:

Leadership Development for Organisations

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