High-performing companies place a high priority on developing their high-potential leaders, according to Training’s 2025 Leadership Development Survey conducted in partnership with Wilson Learning Worldwide.
They identify high-potential leaders early, provide continuous leadership skills training throughout their career, and take action to support these new leaders through their transition to the next management level. We asked six winners of our Training MVP Awards—which recognize excellence in employee training and development—to share details on the successful leadership programs they’ve created to foster high-potential talent. Some common elements include: 360-degree assessments, networking time with executive leadership, capstone projects to solve real-world challenges, teambuilding exercises, job shadowing and stretch assignments, personalized coaching, and knowledge-sharing platforms and communities.
Here’s a look at their best practices that have helped put high-potential leaders on the pathway to promotion and their organizations on the fast track to peak performance.
AAA NORTHEAST: ACCELERATE RISING LEADER
Launched in 2022, AAA Northeast’s Accelerate Rising Leader program aims to help high-potential early career leaders develop and build the skills required to lead self, lead others, and lead the business. Partnered with UpSpiral Leadership, the program is designed to ignite a ripple effect of positive change, transforming challenges into opportunities for collective success.
Each year, two cohorts of 30 emerging leaders from all areas of the organization are invited to participate in a nine-month immersive curriculum, which includes virtual sessions, in-person labs, simulations, self-paced intercession work, networking time with executive leadership, and community volunteerism.
The program culminates in a capstone project that unites participants from all areas of the business to research, develop, and ultimately present an idea for future implementation with the support of an executive mentor.
As part of the Accelerate Rising Leader program, learners participate in several creative teambuilding events. “In one simulation, The Rainforest Challenge, participants are divided into teams to work through a challenge outside the context of our business; it allows the leadership principles to emerge organically,” explains AAA Northeast Talent Development Director Alicia Williamson. “The learners are on a humanitarian mission and stranded in the jungle and they must strategize and problem solve. After the simulation, we all participate in a debrief that unpacks emotional intelligence, communication, curiosity, and managing failure.”
Fifty-two percent of the participants who completed the Accelerate Rising Leader Program were promoted during or directly after completing the program, according to Williamson.
COMPASS ONE HEALTHCARE: LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
Leadership Academy is a six-month leadership development program for high-potential frontline associates and mid-level managers in TouchPoint Support Services at Compass One Healthcare.
All candidates must be nominated by their managers in order to participate in the program.
Pre- and post-training, participants self-rate their skill sets in the following areas:
• Leadership skills
• Knowledge of inclusive leadership
• Current understanding of the skills and actions required for professional growth
• Preparedness for career advancement
“The program provides a personalized approach with customized learning for each participant’s skill gaps and interests,” says Katie Robertson Cooper, TouchPoint director of Learning and Development. “All participants begin the program by having a development meeting with their manager to discuss interests and skill gaps and create a personal development plan (PDP). The PDP includes customized eLearning activities and assessments offered by Harvard Manage Mentor that target individual skill gaps.”
Online instructor-led classroom sessions on topics such as coaching, delegation, talent management, empathetic leadership, and executive presence are offered monthly. The program includes experiential learning through job shadowing assignments. Once all learning assignments have been completed, each participant must submit and present a capstone project that addresses real-life business challenges.
Leadership Academy Co-Pilots, former graduates of the program, host monthly participant calls to address any concerns or challenges, discuss key takeaways from learning, and recognize participant successes.
Based on manager evaluations in 2023, Cooper says, 91 percent of program graduates “much improved” or “improved” their skill gaps. Almost 20 percent of Leadership Academy graduates were promoted to leadership positions.
CORE & MAIN: EXTRAORDINARY LEADER
Core & Main has grown to become the industry leader it is today, thanks, in part, to its extraordinary leaders. Those leaders did not become extraordinary by chance.
“Leadership development is vital to ensuring Core & Main remains successful,” says Evelyn Swanson, vice president of Learning and Organizational Development at Core & Main.
High-potential leaders are invited to attend the company’s “Extraordinary Leader” program. The six-month program includes a 360 assessment, which is strengths-based using the Zenger Folkman approach, with a debrief and at least two additional coaching sessions with certified coaches.
“It includes an in-person, 2.5-day session designed to support competency development and planning across a wide array of topics such as talent metrics, attracting talent, values and mission, recognition, knowledge transfer, and associate engagement,” Swanson says. “Participants create their personal development plan and present it to their classmates, along with a 90-day action plan aimed at enhancing their teams’ effectiveness.
After the in-person session, participants share their plan with their manager and team, have monthly peer coaching with another participant, attend a virtual three-month check-in to discuss progress, and are sent follow-up micro-sessions on key topics.”
In 2023, Core & Main introduced Zenger Folkman’s development app to encourage ongoing development after the program. The app contains best practices, videos, development tips by competency, and articles related to leadership.
Some 205 Extraordinary Leaders have completed the program. The rate of Extraordinary Leader participants who were promoted after attending the program compared to those who have not attended is nearly double, Swanson says.
GILBANE BUILDING COMPANY: GILBANE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
The Gilbane Leadership Development Program (GLDP) targets mid-level leaders who have the potential to become business unit leaders or department heads within five years. GLDP offers a hybrid approach, including five months of honing leadership skills and collaboration both within the cohort and with executive leadership. Here’s a program overview:
Assessments:
- 360 multi-rater assessment: Results will contribute to career development planning.
- Reflected Best Self Exercise: Tool to solicit feedback and provide self-reflection revealing their unique strengths and talents.
Onsite Learning:
• Participants attend a four-day launch session at Babson Executive Education. Areas of focus include: strategic visioning and thinking, financial acumen, authentic leadership, emotional intelligence, inclusive leadership, and innovation.
Networking:
- Participants have an opportunity to connect one-on-one with senior executives.
- The cohort is broken into smaller working teams to research, analyze, and strategically align a unique business challenge they identify based on a vision and strategy session led by the CEO.
Final Project:
- Teams present project learnings, process, and propose solutions.
“The teams meet regularly through this five-month project and debrief progress quarterly, culminating in a formal presentation to the senior leaders to make recommendations and share self-reflections,” explains Gilbane Building Company Senior Learning & Development Specialist Joanne Randall.
As part of its People First strategy, Gilbane aims to reduce its turnover rate to less than 15 percent, Randall says. Turnover for the leader group is 5.5 percent. Leaders who complete this program are nearly three times more likely to remain with the company than those who do not.
PANDA RESTAURANT GROUP: FAST-TRACK LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE
For the past two years, Panda Restaurant Group has achieved an annual goal to open at least 80 new Panda Express restaurants, requiring not only two restaurant managers per location, but also more training leaders and area coaches of Operations (ACOs) to support them. This inspired a new partnership with Operations leaders to create the new Fast-Track Leadership Development Initiative, a high-touch program with three key components:
- Collaboration to identify high-potential talent early. University of Panda team members now join annual People Planning sessions to help Operations leaders evaluate high-potential (HIPO) managers for fast-tracked promotion, using personalized report cards detailing: Level 2 scores from completed Great Operations (GO) courses; leadership competency ratings (per Panda’s Operations Competency Model); and feedback from Ops Champions, senior restaurant leaders who attend all GO classes to observe, mentor, and help teach emerging leaders.
- Collaboration on personalized leader assessment, preparation, and coaching. Operations supervisors use the report cards and annual performance reviews to identify gaps and collaborate with the University of Panda team to help HIPOs to close those gaps. They also co-facilitate new 90-minute virtual prep sessions to help candidates prepare for their next GO curriculum course. Post-prep session, candidates can get additional one-on-one coaching, in-person or virtually, from supervisors or subject matter experts (SMEs). For example, a candidate wanting more guidance on managing labor costs for multiple restaurants might meet with a Finance department SME.
- Automatic registration for accelerated curriculum completion. To avoid too much time elapsing between classes, the University of Panda team proactively schedules HIPO candidates for their next class upon completion of the previous level.
“New training leaders and ACOs receive supervisor coaching and mentoring as needed to review course topics and ensure success,” adds Learning and Development Executive Director Dora Lee. “eLearning modules are available on-demand to support continued growth. And new leaders actively network with their GO course cohorts for ongoing support, best practice sharing, and problem solving.”
Candidates typically are promoted within two to four weeks after graduation from their GO class, Lee says. In 2024, 72 candidates were promoted to training leader and 30 candidates were promoted to ACO. Candidates have been promoted an average of nine months faster than the prior year. Lee notes that the Fast-Track Leadership Development Initiative was so successful it inspired a similar program for restaurant managers.
SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIVERSITY: PINNACLE LEADERSHIP PROGRAM
Southern New Hampshire University’s (SNHU) Pinnacle Leadership Program is a 10-month cohort-based program that helps participants grow in their leadership capabilities, explore their personal leadership, collaborate across organizational boundaries, and lead teams through complexity and change. The program consists of three components:
1. Instructor-led learning held monthly on critical topics such as learning agility, navigating polarities, change leadership, inclusive leadership, spanning organizational boundaries, and leadership self-awareness.
2. Project-based learning where participants are divided into separate communities of learning and given a business challenge to collaboratively learn about and develop proposed actions for the business to take.
3. Formal coaching engagements that help participants process the learnings as they work to integrate it into their day-to-day work.
In fiscal year 2024, Pinnacle focused on artificial intelligence (AI). “Project-based learning groups explored how AI can both improve our outcomes as a university and foster a culture of continuous learning and ethical innovation through deploying AI technologies in alignment with our university core values,” says SNHU Vice President of Talent Development Philip Nazzaro. “The teams explored and leveraged multiple AI tools through a variety of lenses, including the employee experience; organizational culture; teaming and leadership; the student/customer experience; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and accessibility. This learning required the extensive use of AI in novel ways to move beyond ‘what is AI?’ and ‘how to use AI?’ and into the deeper cultural and ethical questions on how it can integrate with the human experience to benefit our students, our employees, and society.”
Participants in the program receive a 360 assessment and coaching aligned to the university’s core competencies at the commencement of the program and again six months following the completion of Pinnacle. In addition, behavior impact is measured in advance of the post-360 through employee surveys measuring the support leaders provide their direct reports.
Post-program employee surveys show Pinnacle graduates’ direct reports rate them 22 percent higher on leadership support following completion of the program, Nazzaro says. In addition, in FY’24 SNHU, retained 95.28 percent of leaders and filled 17.24 percent of senior leadership roles internally.