Lead by Example or Lose the Team

The number one question I get from CEOs sounds innocent enough:

“Jon, how do I get my team to take training seriously and actually participate?”

Leadership : Lead by Example - Media by WiX

Here’s the answer they all get, and they all hate:

You have to take it seriously if you want them to take it seriously.

Because your team isn’t confused.

They’re calibrated.

They’re watching what gets attention, what gets followed up on, and what quietly disappears after the announcement.

If training lives in a portal and never shows up in leadership behavior, it becomes optional in everyone’s mind.

Not because people are lazy, but because people are logical.

So what does “taking it seriously” actually look like?

It’s not a speech.

It’s not a memo.

It’s leaders participating in the training, not as a performance, but as a standard.

It’s leaders endorsing it out loud, connecting it to real goals, and referencing it in meetings like it matters.

It’s leaders asking, “What did you take from it?”

“What are you going to try this week?”

“Where did it hit home?”

Then circling back later and asking again.

Here’s the magic most teams never experience: follow-up.

When your people know you’re going to ask questions, they pay attention.

When they know you actually care whether it helps them, they start to care too.

Not overnight, but fast.

Attention creates importance. Importance creates effort.

Effort creates improvement.

If you want training to be a culture, not a checkbox, stop throwing it over the fence.

Pull it into the room.

Put your name on it.

Make it part of how you lead.

Because your team won’t take development more seriously than their leaders do.

And one more thing, if your training feels like a 47-slide hostage situation from 2009, don’t be surprised when your team treats it like background noise.

People will lean in when it’s relevant, practical, and actually helps them win at work, not when it sounds like it was written by a committee that’s never done the job.

That’s where Doolen Strategy Partners and the GetDoolen Training Platform come in.

We build training that’s short, real, and usable, the kind of stuff your team can apply the same day, not “someday when life is calm.”

We’ll tailor it to your world, your problems, and your standards, then help you turn it into a shared language your leaders can coach off of.

So yes, you still have to lead by example.

But we’ll make sure it’s worth leading.

If you’re ready to make training something your team actually respects (instead of speed-running while eating a taco), partner with Doolen Strategy Partners and bring in the GetDoolen Training Platform.