How to Measure Your Progress in Leadership Development
- Nancy Maher
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Leadership development doesn’t move in straight lines
AND
Leadership growth doesn’t happen overnight.
It’s gradual, personal, and may feel invisible until we look back.
That’s what makes measuring progress in your leadership development both crucial and challenging. You can’t manage what you can’t measure — and leadership is full of intangible shifts: confidence, communication style, mindset, empathy, decision-making.
If you’re part of one of our leadership development coaching programmes or a leadership peer coaching circle, setting goals and tracking your progress helps you stay motivated, reflective, and intentional. This article explores how to set up meaningful ways to measure your progress in leadership development from the start and reflect on it at the end.
Contents
Why Measuring Leadership Progress in Leadership Development Matters
When you commit to leadership development, it’s easy to assume progress will just happen. But without a direction and a way to track your progress, you can drift.
Measurement makes growth visible.
It helps you:
Recognise the difference between effort and impact.
Celebrate progress and stay motivated when the work feels slow.
Identify what’s working and where to adjust your focus.
Bring accountability to your learning journey.
Leadership progress is not about ticking boxes. It’s about building self-awareness, confidence, and effectiveness — with feedback and reflection as your guide.
Start by Defining What “Progress” Means to You
Before you can measure growth, you need to define what growth looks like.
Ask yourself:
What kind of leader do I want to become by the end of this programme?
Some examples might include:
I want to communicate with more clarity and confidence.
I want to empower my team rather than solve everything myself.
I want to stay calm under pressure and lead with empathy.
Now make that tangible. Add indicators or evidence you’d expect to see if you were improving in those areas.
For example, you might notice:
More engagement and openness in one-to-one meetings.
More ownership within the team.
Colleagues describe you as approachable and calm.
Defining these outcomes gives you a personal benchmark.
It’s the difference between saying “I want to lead better” and “I want to lead better by doing X and noticing Y.”
This clarity turns your leadership development plan into a learning experiment where you can track inputs, notice outcomes, and reflect on the journey.
Use Leadership Self-Assessment Tools
A good self-assessment creates a snapshot of where you are now. When repeated later, it shows how far you’ve come.
We start our signature EMPOWER Programmes with:
A leadership self-assessment survey, like Everything DiSC Agile EQ, that scores skills such as communication, emotional intelligence, and adaptability.
A leadership self-assessment exercise - rating your current leadership behaviours when leading yourself, leading others and collaborating.
Simple reflection journal prompts like:
-What am I confident about as a leader right now?
-Where do I feel challenged or uncertain?
-What feedback have I received recently?
These tools give you data - both numbers and narratives to revisit at the end of your leadership coaching programme. It’s often eye-opening how much your language and confidence change when you compare the two.
Get Feedback From Others — Early and Often
Feedback from others offers the missing perspective we can’t see ourselves.
Ask your manager, peers, or team members for simple, specific feedback. Use open and neutral questions such as:
-When you see me lead a meeting, what stands out about my style?
-What’s one thing you think I do well as a leader?
-What’s one thing you’d like to see me do more or less of?
We use a 360-degree feedback tool early in our leadership development programmes. These tools collect insights from your manager, peers, direct reports, and coach, giving you a balanced picture of your leadership impact.
Make sure you treat feedback as a gift, not judgment. It’s not about getting “good” or “bad” results — it’s about seeing patterns and progress over time.
Track Real-Life Leadership Moments
Progress in leadership shows up in the moments that matter — not in the metrics alone.
Start keeping notes of key leadership moments across your leadership development programme:
Difficult conversations that went better than before.
Decisions you made with more confidence or inclusion.
Times when you coached someone rather than telling them what to do.
You can use a “Leadership Reflection Log” template — a simple document with three columns:
1. Situation or challenge
2. What I did
3. What I learned
Over time, small entries build a powerful record of behavioural growth and accountability.
This also becomes a practical storytelling tool when you later share your leadership journey in reviews or interviews.
Build Reflection Routines
Reflection is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to measure your leadership growth.
Try one of these reflection practices:
Weekly reflections: Spend 10 minutes noting what went well, what challenged you, and what you’d do differently next week.
Monthly summaries: At the end of each month, review key moments and record 1–2 insights or shifts you notice.
End-of-program review: Reread your earlier notes and self-assessment. Highlight phrases or beliefs that have changed.
Reflection shows you not just what you did differently, but how you now think differently — a key sign of leadership maturity.
Hungry for more ideas?
Check out our article: The Critical Leadership Skill of Reflection
Review Coaching Goals Midway
In a long programme, it’s easy to set a goal and forget about it.
A midway review keeps your growth on track.
Halfway through your 6-month leadership coaching programme, pause and ask:
Are my goals still relevant?
What progress can I already see or feel?
What habits or awareness have shifted?
You might notice that your goals have evolved. That’s a signal of growth, not failure. Your understanding of what effective leadership means often deepens as your experience grows.
A simple goal tracker or progress dashboard (digital or handwritten) can help you visualise it — even something as basic as colour-coding progress from “emerging” to “consistent.”
Revisit Evidence at the End of the Programme
The most rewarding moment in leadership development comes when you realise just how much you’ve evolved your leadership approach.
To close your programme:
1. Revisit your initial self-assessment.
2. Review your feedback notes or any 360-degree feedback results.
3. Re-read your journal or reflection log.
4. Ask yourself:
What’s different about how I show up today?
What do others notice has changed?
How do I feel about my leadership identity now?
For a quantitative touch, you can also create a simple “Leadership Growth Scorecard.” Choose five focus areas (like communication, confidence, delegation, resilience, and presence) and rate yourself at the beginning and end. Even if subjective, the shift will help make progress visible.
Celebrate and Sustain the Growth
Recognition reinforces motivation.
In our signature leadership development programme EMPOWER, we celebrate endings. Celebrate what’s changed — as there will always be some goals still in progress.
Here are ways to close your leadership programme intentionally:
Write yourself a “Leadership Letter to Future Me.” Summarise the key lessons you’ve learned.
Share one new behaviour or habit you’re committed to sustaining.
Work with your coach to reflect back on your progress — hearing it articulated can be powerful.
Hungry for more ideas?
Check out our article: Finishing Your Leadership Development Programme With Intention
Sustaining growth beyond the programme means keeping the same reflection and feedback routines alive. Leadership development isn’t a one-time event; it’s a lifelong practice.
What Makes Leadership Progress Hard to Measure
Leadership development doesn't follow a linear path.
Sometimes the more aware you become, the less confident you feel — that’s growth in disguise. You’re seeing more, noticing more, and preparing for new levels of challenge.
That’s why it’s important to measure both inner shifts (thoughts, emotions, confidence, mindset) and outer results (behaviour, impact, relationships).
Growth often starts invisible, then shows up in others’ feedback and your own new choices.
Bringing It All Together: A Simple Framework
Here’s a quick framework you can adapt for your own leadership journey:
Set your starting point: conduct a leadership self-assessment and record your current beliefs, habits, and challenges.
Define your focus areas: choose 3–5 skills or qualities that matter most.
Gather feedback early and often: from colleagues, your coach, and the group.
Reflect regularly: through journaling, group discussions, or voice notes.
Review midway: adjust goals based on new insights.
Compare end-to-start: retake surveys, reread reflections, and collect final feedback.
Capture the learning: write a short summary of your growth story.
This approach makes your leadership progress visible, even if it’s not always measurable by numbers.
Final Thoughts
Measuring progress in leadership development is about awareness, not perfection.
When you start by setting clear intentions, gather feedback with curiosity, and reflect regularly, you create a personal growth record that tells your story.
By the end of your leadership coaching programme, you’ll see it clearly: not just what you’ve done differently, but who you’ve become in the process. Leadership development is a lifelong practice.
Ready to start your leadership development journey?
Chat to us about our leadership development programmes, including leadership group coaching and 1:1 coaching for first-time managers, middle managers, women, neurodiverse leaders, and senior leaders.
