This chapter focuses on measuring application and business impact, two of the seven measures that may be used to report the results of a leadership development program in a leadership scorecard. The other measures are indicators, satisfaction, and learning, which were covered in Chapter 3, and ROI and intangible benefits, which will be covered in following chapters.

Measuring the actual application and business impact of skills and knowledge is important because these steps play a critical role in the overall success or failure of a leadership development program. If newly acquired skills and knowledge are not applied effectively, there will be no change in the performance of the individual and the corresponding business impact and no benefit from the leadership development program. As discussed briefly earlier, the value of information increases as progress is made through the chain of impact from satisfaction (Level 1) to ROI (Level 5). Thus, information concerning application (Level 3) and business impact (Level 4) is more valuable to management than reaction/satisfaction (Level 1) and learning (Level 2). Measuring application and business impact also provides the leadership development function with the opportunity to identify the barriers and enablers to application.

Several data collection methods are available to measure application and business impact. The range of possibilities vary including the use of questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, and observation. Also included are several specific methodologies, such as action planning and performance contracting. These data collection methods are explored in this chapter.