The Quiet Killer: Why Your Leadership Training Isn't Sticking
Nov 21, 2025The biggest threat to the success of your learning and development initiatives isn’t the one you’re staring at—the course content, the budget, or the technology.
It’s the one quietly biting every participant when no one’s looking.
Organisations pour resources into the 'lions' of L&D: the latest leadership models, sophisticated digital platforms, skill-based KPIs, and mandatory attendance. These are visible, measurable, and feel like the key to unlocking potential.
But Lions barely kill anyone.
Mosquitoes, on the other hand, kill nearly a million people a year—and in the context of learning and team skill adoption, the mosquitoes are the invisible, emotional forces we ignore:
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A flicker of scepticism about the trainer's credibility
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A whisper of fear that trying a new skill will lead to public failure
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An old belief that 'this training won't change anything'
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A defensive reaction to being coached or challenged
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A story someone tells themselves that they are 'too busy to apply' the new knowledge
Tiny. Uninteresting. Easy to dismiss as 'bad attitude' or 'resistance.'
At an individual level, these are small cognitive irritations. But collectively, they are lethal to the transfer of learning back to the job:
They drain the energy required for skill practice. They erode the psychological safety needed for experimentation. They suffocate the very performance the training was designed to improve. And they do it quietly, while everyone is focusingon the strategic 'lions.'
Building emotional intelligence works exactly the same way as building a defence against bites. When leaders and participants build internal immunity to these emotional triggers, the cognitive 'bites' that used to stop learning in its tracks stop landing.
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Teams become more resilient to the discomfort of learning.
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Trust in the coaching programme increases.
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Feedback adoption improves immediately.
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Collaboration on new projects grows organically.
Effective skill development isn't about designing the perfect curriculum. It's about identifying and eliminating the emotional mosquitoes that block learning transfer and prevent new skills from becoming deeply embedded habits.
Is Your Training Budget Being Eaten Alive?
If your new skills aren't sticking, you're focussing on the wrong problem. Our bespoke emotional intelligence and team resilience programmes integrate into your existing L&D to ensure learning actually transfers back to the job. Explore our training solutions and request a full programme breakdown today [email protected]
Looking to shift how your team shows up?
Check out Elephant in the Room ā€” our signature training programme for teams ready to build trust, speak honestly, and perform at a higher level.
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