Dr. Agota Szabo is a distinguished expert in leadership and governance, with many years of experience in both academia and practice. She currently teaches in the MBA in Leadership in Sustainability and also serves as a Leadership & Board Governance Researcher.
Many organizations proudly invest in leadership development programs, among others in MBA programs. Colleagues return energized, equipped with new frameworks, broader perspectives, and stronger strategic thinking skills. Organizations often have a rather simple assumption: development has taken place and value has been created throughout the educational program. But is this very the development phase must end? Have organizations become too focused on the learning experience itself, while largely ignoring what happens afterward? Because in many cases, the real challenge starts after the MBA ends.
For a short period, the energy is high and willingness change is real. However, very soon the organizational reality takes over. Operational pressure returns and existing routines take priority again. The individual who recently spent months discussing transformation and sustainable change suddenly finds themselves back in an environment optimized for something else. In this way, the MBA learning stays theoretical, because implementation requires a different kind of support.
Knowledge is not the same as impact
It is becoming increasingly clear that many organizations overestimate the value of knowledge acquisition while underestimating the complexity of implementation. An MBA does not automatically create organizational change, having new ideas is not the same as executing them. Understanding a framework is not the same as navigating stakeholder resistance. Talking about leadership is not the same as leading difficult conversations inside a complex organization. However, many MBA development investments stop precisely at the point where the real work should begin with the consequence of not creating the conditions for impact.
The professionals who create impact are not necessarily those who know the most, but those who can translate insight into action despite uncertainty, resistance, and complexity.
What is the missing phase?
What is often missing is a structured transition between learning and execution with a deliberate process that helps professionals:
This phase is rarely prioritized because it feels less visible than the MBA itself. There is no diploma attached to implementation and no formal milestone. Nobody applauds you at this stage of development, but arguably, this is the phase where the actual value is created.
Organizations need to think differently
If organizations want meaningful return on leadership development investments, they need to move beyond the assumption that learning alone creates transformation, because it is not enough.
Real impact requires:
The ability to execute meaningful change is becoming more valuable than the ability to simply understand it conceptually, because the professionals who create impact are not necessarily those who know the most. You need professionals who can translate insight into action despite uncertainty, resistance, and complexity. That capability needs to be developed intentionally and in a structured format.
What to ask after an MBA?
Perhaps the most important question organizations should ask after sponsoring an MBA:
Without those questions, development risks remain an intellectual and theoretical exercise rather than a driver of organizational progress. We live in a world that increasingly demands adaptability, implementation, and responsible leadership, that is no longer enough.
The organizations that will benefit most from leadership development in the future will not necessarily be the ones investing the most in education, but the ones also paying attention to what happens after it.
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