Imagine waiting until a child turns 18 before teaching them to read.

For years, they would watch other people reading books, newspapers and messages. They might pick up a few things along the way. They might recognise some words and learn a few tricks for getting by.

Then imagine asking them to sit exams where reading was critical to success.

You would hardly be surprised if they struggled.

Not because they lacked intelligence.

Not because they lacked potential.

But because they had never been given the opportunity to develop the skills they needed.

Now imagine that after those exams, we enrolled them on a two-day reading course and expected everything to be fine.

It sounds ridiculous.

Yet this is remarkably similar to how many organisations approach leadership development.

People spend years progressing through their careers before being promoted into roles where communication, influencing, coaching, decision-making and people management are critical to success. Only then do we begin teaching many of those skills.

In effect, we wait until someone needs to lead before we start developing their leadership capability.

The more you think about it, the stranger it seems.

Leadership is one of the few skills we routinely teach after people need it.

Doctors train before treating patients. Pilots train before flying passengers. Lawyers train before advising clients. Yet many new managers find themselves leading teams with little formal preparation for the challenges ahead.

This isn’t because organisations don’t care about leadership. In fact, many invest heavily in leadership programmes, workshops and development initiatives. The issue is that we often start too late.

We tend to think leadership begins with a job title. But leadership starts long before someone becomes a manager.

Every day, people demonstrate leadership when they:

• Influence colleagues
• Support team members
• Build relationships across departments
• Navigate difficult conversations
• Solve problems collaboratively
• Help others succeed

These are leadership behaviours, regardless of whether someone has direct reports.

If we wait until someone becomes a manager before developing these skills, we’re missing years of opportunities to help them grow.

The challenge becomes even clearer when we think about how people actually learn.

Take riding a bicycle.

Nobody expects a child to attend a one-day workshop and emerge as a confident cyclist. Learning happens through doing. There are wobbles, mistakes, near misses and plenty of encouragement along the way. Gradually, confidence grows. Eventually, the skill becomes second nature.

Leadership develops in much the same way.

People don’t become effective leaders because they’ve attended a course. They become effective leaders because they’ve had opportunities to practise what they’ve learned, reflect on their experiences and receive feedback over time.

Training can provide knowledge. Experience develops capability.

Yet organisations often focus heavily on the first and underestimate the second.

A leadership programme might introduce important concepts, but real development happens afterwards:

• Having the difficult conversation
• Leading the project
• Managing competing priorities
• Influencing without authority
• Making decisions under pressure
• Learning from mistakes

These experiences are where leadership capability is truly built.

Perhaps the biggest mistake we make is viewing leadership development as something that prepares people for leadership roles.

What if leadership development wasn’t about preparing future managers?

What if it was about helping people develop skills that make them more effective contributors, collaborators and influencers throughout their careers?

By the time someone receives a management title, they should already have had years of opportunities to build many of the capabilities that leadership requires.

The best organisations understand this. They don’t treat leadership development as a course that follows promotion. They view it as a continuous process that starts early, grows over time and is reinforced through everyday experiences.

Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question.

For years, organisations have asked:

“How do we develop better leaders?”

It’s an important question, but perhaps there’s a better one. “Why do we wait so long to start?”

If we taught reading the way we often teach leadership, many people would struggle to read.

If we taught cycling the way we often teach leadership, many people would never get back on the bike after the first fall.

Leadership is no different.

It takes time. It takes practice. It takes support.

And perhaps most importantly, it needs to start long before someone becomes a leader.