How to Make the Business Case for Leadership Development to Your CEO
Your CEO doesn't need to be sold on leadership development. They need to see the math.
If you lead HR at a growing company, you've probably had this conversation. You know your managers need support. You can see where leadership gaps are slowing the company down. But when you bring it to your CEO, it lands as a "nice to have."
Here's the short answer. Stop pitching leadership development as a perk. Frame it as a business decision about capacity, retention, and speed. Then bring a clear plan and a small first step.
Why does leadership development get treated as a perk?
Usually because of how it's framed. "Our managers could use some training" competes with every other nice-to-have on the list. "Our managers spend eight hours a week answering questions a trained team could handle" competes with the problems your CEO is already trying to solve.
CEOs at growing companies think in trade-offs. Every dollar and hour has to earn its place. Your job is to show that leadership development earns it.
What does the research say about the return?
A study led by Harvard Business School professor Christopher Stanton, with Miguel Espinosa, gives HR leaders a useful way to talk about return. It was summarized in HBR in January 2026, with more detail in HBS Working Knowledge.
The researchers followed 655 employees at a government agency in Colombia. Here's what they found after a skills training program for frontline staff:
Trained employees completed about 10% more of their goals in the 12 weeks after training.
They sent fewer help requests to their managers. That freed managers to spend more time on their own strategic goals.
Trained employees were about twice as likely to be promoted as those who weren't trained.
The manager piece is the one to underline. According to the researchers, the time managers got back made up nearly half of the program's total benefit. Most companies never count that.
This was one study, in one organization. It's still a useful frame for your CEO: developing people pays off twice, once in their work and again in the time it frees up above them.
What's the risk your CEO will raise?
A good CEO will ask whether training actually sticks. It's a fair question.
A 2016 HBR article by Michael Beer, Magnus Finnström, and Derek Schrader, "Why Leadership Training Fails (and What to Do About It)," found that much training doesn't last because people go back to an organization that hasn't changed. Their advice is to fix organizational design and management processes first.
Answer that concern up front. Show that your plan addresses the system, not just the skills. That's the difference between a training event and formal leadership development.
How do you build the business case?
Keep it to one page. Your CEO should be able to read it in five minutes.
The problem. Name one specific leadership gap. For example: "Our new managers escalate most decisions to their directors."
The cost of doing nothing. Put a number on it. Hours lost each week, turnover among key people, or decisions waiting on the CEO. A rough estimate beats none.
The plan. What you'll do, for whom, and over what timeline. Include how you'll address the system around people, not only their skills.
The measures. Two or three things you'll track. Manager time, retention of key people, or how fast decisions move.
The first step. Something small and concrete your CEO can say yes to now.
What language lands with a CEO?
A few shifts make a real difference:
Instead of | Try |
"Our managers need training." | "Our managers are spending hours on questions their teams could handle." |
"It would be good for morale." | "It protects retention of the people we can least afford to lose." |
"Other companies invest in this." | "Here's the cost of not doing it, and here's how we'll measure the return." |
What's a good first step?
Start with the leadership team itself. When the top team works well together, better leadership habits spread down through the company. That's how leadership practices start to evolve across the whole organization.
A focused Q4 leadership team retreat is a concrete, fundable first step. It gives the team time to diagnose what's really slowing things down and agree on what to fix first. I wrote more about what leadership team retreats are and why they matter.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get my CEO to invest in leadership development?
Frame it as a business decision. Show the cost of the current gap, a clear plan, how you'll measure results, and a small first step.
Does leadership training pay off?
Research by Stanton and Espinosa found trained employees completed about 10% more of their goals, and their managers gained time back. It pays off most when the system around people changes too.
What's a good first step?
Start with the leadership team. A facilitated retreat is one concrete way to begin.
Where to start
If you're building the case for leadership development at your company, you don't have to do it alone. Whether you're the HR leader or the CEO, I'm happy to talk through where formal leadership development could make the biggest difference for your team. Book a 30-minute call with me here.
Kristen Illes is the Principal of 3D Leadership Solutions, where she partners with founders and executive teams at growth-stage companies to build the leadership practices that let them scale.
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