Guide to Building Leadership Capability and Empowering Managers

Leadership capability represents the comprehensive mix of knowledge, skills, behaviours, and tools that enable effective leadership across various contexts. Unlike individual leadership skills, capability encompasses the broader capacity to adapt and lead effectively in diverse situations.

Understanding this distinction proves crucial for HR professionals designing development programmes. Skills-based training might teach a manager how to conduct performance reviews, but capability building develops their ability to have meaningful conversations that motivate team members, regardless of context.

The Strategic Importance of Capability Building

Leadership capability drives measurable business outcomes through several mechanisms:

• Organisational Alignment: Leaders with strong capabilities better translate strategic objectives into actionable plans. McKinsey found that organisations that emphasise a common purpose are 2.4 times more likely than those that don’t to effectively set a clear direction.
• Enhanced Resilience: Deloitte found that 94% of respondents believe leadership capability and effectiveness are very important, but only 23% believe their organisations have leaders with the capabilities needed for a disrupted world.
• Innovation Catalyst: Research from the British Psychological Society shows that teams whose leaders have creative self-efficacy produce more creative outcomes and invest more effort in creative tasks.

When you can focus on building leadership capability properly, you end up with managers who feel empowered to lead their teams. Those managers stop looking to just tick boxes and start engaging with their teams. They make decisions with confidence rather than constantly seeking approval, and they create the kind of working environment where people want to contribute their best work.

The impact ripples throughout the organisation. These managers build better relationships with their teams, make quicker decisions when they matter, and most importantly, they help their own people feel more empowered too.

A strength-based development process for managers shows tangible results as well. Gallup research shows that focus on strengths have seen sales increases, profit increases, and lower turnover. Profit increases in the range of ~14-29% when strengths-based approaches are used.

Large organisations can take many steps towards building leadership capability, but it’s beneficial to take a structured approach to the process. Building, rather than recruiting capability can be a strong strategy as there continues to be a skills gap in the market. Even more impactful can be the effect of a bad hire. This is where promoting and developing from within can strengthen cultural alignment and leadership capability.

“A bad hire at manager level costs £132,000. Not just salary — we’re talking about lost productivity, team disruption, the cost of re-hiring, potential customer impact. One wrong senior hire can wipe out the ROI of your entire recruitment function for the year. And here’s the paradox — despite redundancies, we still have significant skills shortages. The talent you need is scarce, expensive, and has options. They’re not desperate for work; they’re selective about where they want to work. This is the perfect storm: higher stakes, longer timescales, bigger costs, and fewer good candidates.”

Emma Parkin, Head of Propositions, The Access Group in Recruitment Under Pressure

Conduct a Skills Gap Analysis

A skills gap analysis has to go beyond a box ticking exercise and examine more than your standard competency frameworks. Combine performance reviews, 360-degree feedback, and strategic planning sessions for a comprehensive picture. Include direct reports' perspectives, as they often provide the most honest insights into day-to-day leadership behaviours.

Design Personalised Learning Pathways

One-size-fits-all programmes fail in large organisations because leadership needs vary significantly across departments and levels. Personalised pathways create tailored development journeys that meet specific needs whilst maintaining programme coherence.

Acacium Group implemented Access Learning to support leadership development across their complex organisation:

• Delivered personalised learning pathways for managers aligned with strategic goals
• Enabled leaders to adapt quickly to change through targeted development
• Supported continuous development with real-time progress tracking

Embed Learning into Daily Work

Sustainable leadership development occurs when learning integrates into daily work rather than isolated training events.

Microlearning that can replace hour-long modules can be more effective as managers can fit learning around their busy schedules and meetings, retaining small nuggets of wisdom. It’s beneficial to make these learnings practical and tailor them to the situations managers are likely to face.

Some of the best leadership development comes from working outside your comfort zone. Project assignments that put managers in unfamiliar territory - working with different departments, leading temporary teams, or tackling challenges outside their expertise - build adaptability and perspective faster than any training course.

You can also ask developed managers to mentor newer ones or lead internal sessions on challenges they've overcome. This reinforces their own learning whilst developing coaching skills.

Use Capability Frameworks

Established frameworks provide structure whilst ensuring comprehensive coverage. When you implement a structured framework across a large organisation, you’ll know that leadership training maintains consistency.

One of the most effective models is below:

The 70-20-10 Development Model:

• 70% Experiential Learning: On-the-job experiences and real-world problem-solving
• 20% Social Learning: Mentoring, coaching, and peer collaboration
• 10% Formal Learning: Training programmes and structured education

This recognises that whilst formal training plays a role, most leadership development occurs through practical experience and social interaction.

Manager confidence develops through consistent support, clear expectations, and recognition. Implement structured feedback systems that provide both guidance and positive reinforcement whilst creating psychological safety for risk-taking and innovation. Gallup found that employees who "strongly agree they receive valuable feedback from people they work with are 5× as likely to be engaged, 57% less likely to be burned out, and 48% less likely to be looking or watching for another job.”

Empowered managers need both soft skills and practical tools. Ongoing training programmes should address evolving challenges like change management and digital leadership, whilst technology provides the information access needed for quick, informed decisions.

True empowerment requires giving managers authority to make meaningful decisions. Define decision-making boundaries clearly and implement accountability measures that focus on outcomes rather than micromanaging processes.

Developing an empowering management style

The shift from traditional directive management to empowering leadership challenges many established practices, but it's where the real change happens. Empowering leaders share some key characteristics: they demonstrate genuine empathy, trust their team's capabilities, and prioritise collaboration over command.

Instead of delegating tasks, empowering managers can delegate outcomes. This gives team members ownership over how they achieve results whilst maintaining clear expectations.

Perhaps the biggest mindset shift involves resisting the urge to provide immediate solutions. When team members bring challenges, empowering managers ask questions that help people think through problems themselves.
Traditional feedback often focuses on what went wrong. Empowering managers flip this to focus on what could go better next time.

Leadership development programmes can falter if they focus on training completion rates rather than actual business impact. If you're going to invest time and budget in building leadership capability, you need to know it's working. The challenge is that leadership development creates both immediate and long-term effects, and some of the most valuable outcomes are harder to quantify.

Feedback beyond the numbers

Numbers tell you what's happening, but not always why it's working. Regular conversations with managers and their teams often reveal the most valuable insights. Are people feeling more supported? Are difficult conversations being handled better? These qualitative changes typically predict performance improvements before they appear in your metrics.

Annual 360-degree feedback captures behavioural changes across communication, delegation, and team development, whilst tracking manager confidence levels helps identify future performance gains early. More frequent feedback can help build a culture of continuous feedback; read our blog to discover ‘How a continuous feedback culture can transform performance?’ and strategies to build it in your organisation.

Quarterly check-ins can help you adjust programmes in real-time, and long-term tracking over 18-24 months demonstrates long term change, rather short-term enthusiasm. When presenting results to senior leadership, connect your findings to business outcomes that matter - faster decision-making translates to reduced costs and quicker project delivery.

Developing leadership capability and fostering empowerment are important steps in shaping a growing organisation. When these elements are embedded into everyday practice, they create a foundation for stronger collaboration, clearer decision-making, and a more engaged workforce. 

An effective way to embed these practices is with a suite solution like Access PeopleXD Evo which offers Talent Management software. Talent Management software offers a comprehensive, integrated solution designed to attract, develop, and retain top talent. From performance management and succession planning to digital learning and career development, it enables managers to take a strategic, data-driven approach to nurturing their teams. With features like self-serve talent profiles, real-time appraisals, and peer-to-peer recognition, it encourages a culture of continuous growth and engagement.

Over time, this embedded approach leads to meaningful outcomes. Organisations become more innovative, better equipped to handle challenges, and more aligned with long-term strategic goals. The best way to begin is by launching small, practical initiatives that can be scaled over time. Whether it’s piloting a mentoring scheme, encouraging cross-team collaboration, or offering targeted leadership development, these actions help build momentum and demonstrate real impact.

Develop your leadership culture with one of our Management and Leadership Training courses. Designed to improve the skills and confidence of managers and leaders, the range covers everything from coaching and mentoring to giving feedback.