By Lakila Bowden and Kamille Richardson
The Cost of Underinvesting in People Development
Three years ago, we were called in to consult with a technology services firm that was struggling with what the managers described as a “retention problem.” What we discovered was a textbook case of how underinvesting in people development can create a domino effect that devastates an organization’s future leadership pipeline.
The situation centered around one of the company’s standout employees—let’s call her Twanna—a project manager who had consistently delivered exceptional results across multiple high-stakes client engagements. Twanna had been with the company for four years, had built strong relationships both internally and with key clients, and was exactly the kind of employee who should have been fast-tracked for leadership development.
Instead, when Twanna applied for a senior management role, she was told she “wasn’t quite ready” but given no roadmap for how to get there. The company had no formal leadership development program, no mentorship structure, and no clear succession planning process. Twanna was essentially told to wait indefinitely while continuing to excel in her current role.
During our assessment, we learned that Twanna had been informally coaching junior team members, leading cross-functional initiatives, and consistently advocating for process improvements—all classic indicators of leadership potential. Yet the organization had no systematic way to recognize these contributions or channel them into formal development opportunities.
Six months into our engagement, Twanna accepted a director-level position with a competitor, bringing her expertise and intimate knowledge of the firm’s client strategies and operational weaknesses. But here’s where the story becomes a cautionary tale about the true cost of underinvestment: Twanna’s departure triggered what we call “the confidence cascade.”
Within eight weeks, three of Twanna’s former colleagues, all high performers who had looked to her as an informal mentor, began questioning their own career prospects. One told us in an interview, “If Twanna couldn’t advance here, what does that say about my future?” Another noted, “She was the one who helped me understand how to navigate difficult client situations. If they won’t invest in developing someone like her, why would they invest in me?”
By the end of that year, the firm had lost five team members from what should have been their emerging leadership pipeline. The financial impact was immediate: recruitment costs, knowledge transfer gaps, and the painful realization that they were essentially training talent for their competitors.
What made this particularly striking was watching how Twanna’s new organization immediately put her leadership potential to work. Within her first year there, she was enrolled in executive coaching, given stretch assignments, and assigned a senior mentor. The contrast couldn’t have been clearer: One organization saw leadership development as an investment, while our client had treated it as an afterthought.
Talent development isn’t just about individual careers, it’s also about organizational sustainability. When companies fail to create clear pathways for advancement or provide intentional leadership development, they lose good employees, institutional knowledge, client relationships, and emerging leadership capacity that takes years to rebuild.
The technology services firm eventually implemented comprehensive leadership development programs, but not before learning an expensive lesson about the true cost of treating people development as optional rather than strategic.
THE RISK OF UNDERINVESTING IN PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT
As demonstrated in this article—and as you may have experienced personally at some point in your career—underinvesting in learning and development poses a major threat to organizational health. When companies sideline training and development, growth stagnates, morale slips, and managers end up responding to symptoms of disengagement instead of preventing them in the first place.
People don’t take breaks from being people, so your people development efforts shouldn’t take a backseat either. Whether employees are salaried or 1099, in-office or hybrid, people need clear expectations and someone who is actively invested in their growth. Without that, performance suffers, and so does retention.
A 2024 Gallup poll (“U.S. Employee Engagement Sinks to 10-Year Low,” January 2025) found that employee engagement had hit a new low.
When we dig further into the Gallup report, three insights stand out:
- Only 46% of employees strongly agreed they know what’s expected of them at work—a 10-point drop from 2020.
- Just 39% strongly felt that someone at work cares about them as a person.
- Only 30% strongly agreed that someone is encouraging their development.
Broadly speaking, economic and political instability has created a baseline level of stress for most workers, and we understand that managers can’t control external chaos. But what managers can do is create an environment where employees feel seen, supported, and empowered. That starts with asking: What’s getting in the way of engagement? Is our learning model outdated? Are we actually making space for development, or just checking boxes?
Ask those questions, and others, through routine employee surveys, and tune in to the feedback. Because disengagement doesn’t fix itself. It demands acknowledgment, insight, and action. And that begins with remembering that whatever your business does, you’re in the business of developing people too.
WHAT EFFECTIVE PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT LOOKS LIKE
The most effective people development strategies require sustainable change. Workplace well-being requires environments where people are seen, supported, and actively shaped into the future leaders your organization needs.
Based on data found in Deloitte’s “2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey,” Gen Z has ambition but doesn’t want to burn out like their millennial predecessors. Deloitte found that just 6% of Gen Zers say their primary career goal is to reach a leadership position, demonstrating they value work-life balance more than climbing the corporate ladder. But don’t mistake that fact for a lack of ambition! When asked the strongest reasons for choosing to work for their current employer, learning and development is in the top three. Gen Zers (and millennials) want managers to provide guidance, inspiration, and mentorship, not just oversight of daily tasks.
So how can managers tap into this desire for professional growth and nurture future leaders? Standard—and viable—options include investing in technical competencies, enhancing critical and strategic thinking skills, or enrolling your brightest in people management courses so they are better prepared for a promotion when the time comes.
But two practices we do not see often enough in our work with organizations are teaching rising leaders how to articulate their worth and instituting the intentional pause to allow for reflection. These practices are easy to implement and go miles in terms of ROI with your organization’s future leaders.
BEST PRACTICES FOR DEVELOPING FUTURE LEADERS: SELF-ADVOCACY
We cannot underscore this first practice enough: Leadership development requires helping employees, especially women, understand how to communicate their value and articulate their contributions. Training emerging leaders on performance advocacy equips them to clearly and confidently communicate their wins in both team and organizational settings.
This style of communication is a skill, a particularly essential one for women, who are often socialized to downplay their effectiveness or defer recognition. “I couldn’t have done it without my team” is probably something you’ve heard, or said, in your annual reviews. But visibility is too often misconstrued as vanity, which is a shame because it is critical to advancement. Authentic self-advocacy builds trust, reinforces credibility, and helps others understand an employee’s value.
Research underscores why this matters more than ever. According to a 2022 Catalyst report, “Women in the Workforce: United States,” women have earned more bachelor’s degrees than men since 1982, more master’s degrees since 1987, and more doctorates since 2006. Yet, as of 2025, as elaborated by Fortune, women held just 11% of CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies (“Women run 11% of Fortune 500 companies in 2025—but progress is still slow,” June 2025). In fact, women’s labor force participation has declined since its 1999 peak. While it’s great to see women making educational gains, this data suggests that achievement in higher ed has not translated into equitable leadership representation in the workplace.
Teaching self-performance advocacy helps close this gap. It empowers future leaders to:
- Recognize and articulate how their achievements bring value to the organization
- Combat impostor syndrome and boost confidence
- Improve team dynamics through a stronger appreciation for team-based strengths and contributions
- Earn deserved recognition, compensation, and influence
Self-promotion, when done with authenticity and intention, is a leadership skill. Focusing on areas where someone operates in their “zone of genius” rather than constantly fixing on weaknesses is a path to exponential growth.
BEST PRACTICES FOR DEVELOPING FUTURE LEADERS: THE INTENTIONAL PAUSE
Another powerful, and often underutilized, leadership tool is the intentional pause. In a work culture that glorifies speed, constant responsiveness, and decisive action, the best leaders know how to slow down. Coaching future leaders to pause before responding—whether in a meeting, a conflict, or a big decision—creates room for reflection, emotional regulation, and clarity.
The intentional pause builds emotional intelligence by:
- Reducing reactive behavior and impulsive decision making
- Enhancing self-awareness and emotional control
- Creating space to align actions with values and long-term vision
- Strengthening communication by choosing words with purpose, not pressure
An intentional pause also serves a broader cultural purpose. We are living in an age of hustle fatigue. In Deloitte’s “2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey,” 40% of Gen Zers and 34% of millennials say they feel stressed or anxious all or most of the time. Of this group, one-third blame work and point to overwork, toxic work environments, and lack of recognition as the main drivers for their stress levels.
In this environment, managers and colleagues who model a slower, more intentional pace provide their teams psychological safety. We know that once an employee feels safe, traits such as reflection and curiosity can surface (the same can be said for students in learning environments), and teams with high psychological safety have a 27% reduction in turnover, a 40% reduction in safety incidents, and a 12% increase in productivity (“How to Create a Culture of Psychological Safety,” Gallup, December 2017). Aside from being a more supportive and psychologically safe workplace, more engagement and lower turnover result in higher revenue down the line, as the business is more productive overall.
We recognize that an intentional pause isn’t a workplace wellness strategy on its own. But we are highlighting this tactic for developing future leaders here because it doesn’t require a massive overhaul. It requires modeling: Senior leaders who stop to ask questions before giving answers, who reward thoughtful disagreement, and who make time for strategic thinking instead of only urgent problem solving carve out space for perspective and mentorship.
SEEING PEOPLE AS A STRATEGY, NOT A SIDE PROJECT
Global investment in learning and development is on the rise, signaling that organizations increasingly understand the value of their people. But even the best L&D strategy falls flat if career pathways remain murky and leadership pipelines underdeveloped. As we’ve seen, the risks of underinvesting in training are real: disengagement, turnover, and lost potential.
To truly thrive, companies must develop people intentionally. That means:
- Centering development as a leadership priority
- Teaching emerging leaders how to self-advocate
- Making space for reflection through the intentional pause
The future of leadership is not only about technical competence or business savvy. It is about knowing how to see and be seen, how to learn and unlearn, how to lead and listen. When companies take learning seriously, when they teach advocacy with intention, and when they model pause over panic, they build something far more resilient than a workforce. They build a culture that lasts.
Lakila Bowden is COO and co-founder of iSee Technologies.
Kamille Richardson is CEO and co-founder of iSee Technologies.