Leadership Development Plan Template
Four documents and three sheets where every goal names the record the business already produces and how often it refreshes.
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Development Plan · Bramwell Logistics · Ivo Kessler, VP network operations · 20 Apr to a sponsor review on 19 Oct
Every goal names the record its progress gets read from
| Goal, in Ivo's words | Read from, and who writes it | Readings by 19 Oct | Baseline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stop being the escalation path for my four regional managers | Exception queue in the transport system. Operations, weekly | 26 | 31 escalations in the four weeks to 17 Apr, 22 inside standing authority |
| Decide lane changes in the meeting that raises them | Network review minutes. Ops planner, fortnightly | 13 | 2 of 9 decided in the room, Jan to Apr |
| Hold the two performance conversations I inherited | HR case note. HR partner, on the day | 1, milestone | Both open since November |
| Lead the customer review instead of handing it to sales | Review deck cover. Account team, quarterly | 2 | Led 0 of 11, attended 5 |
| Think like the owner of a network, not the manager of a region | Ivo's own assessment at sessions four and eight. The coach | 0 | None exists |
| Own the network capital request end to end | Exec committee minutes. Company secretary, monthly | 6, once unblocked | Never presented |
Row five is struck and it stays struck. Its evidence was a record the coaching creates, so it cannot confirm the coaching. Row four kept a real record too slow to steer by: quarterly inside 26 weeks is two readings, so it gained a weekly proxy.
Search this and you get a plan with a metrics column. Every version asks for measurable success indicators, and every version fills them with feedback from the team, a self-reflection log, or a fresh assessment. All three are records the development programme creates. Take the programme away and the evidence goes with it, so nobody outside the room can check any of it and the plan cannot be wrong. A sponsor deciding whether to fund the next six months has nothing to read but the coach's account of the last six.
This pack admits an indicator only where it names a record the business already produces, on a cadence, written by somebody with no stake in the engagement reading well. Federal performance plans are held to the same test. Title 31 of the US Code requires an agency to identify the means used to verify and validate measured values and the sources for its data. Named inside the goal, not chosen once the results are in. A goal whose verification gets picked after the numbers land cannot be failed.
Then the readings get counted, which is arithmetic and fixed the day the two dates are set. A 182-day engagement gives 26 weekly readings and 2 quarterly ones, and two is a before and an after with nothing in between. Six goals in the worked example produced one struck indicator, one under-read goal that gained a weekly proxy, and three blocked on the sponsor. Set the goals from a structured assessment debrief, then run the engagement around them with the coaching engagement pack.
What's in the pack
Goal Register
Every goal with the record its progress is read from, who writes that record, how often it refreshes, and how many readings that gives you before the review date.
Progress Log
One row per reading, taken from the record rather than from a summary of it, with the window each value covers and the readings a rescheduled meeting cost you.
Stakeholder Check-in Schedule
Who confirms which indicator and when, with each date set behind the three-reading floor, so nobody is asked to judge a record that has not moved yet.
Development Plan
The document the coachee reads, their words in the goal headings and the evidence line under each one. Themes arrive out of the debrief of the report.
Practice Assignments
Each rep bound to a meeting already in the diary, so the log can record moved and cancelled separately from missed and say whose calendar it was.
Manager Involvement Note
The actions without which an indicator reads zero no matter what the coachee does, each with a committed date and a status column read at every three-way session.
How an Indicator Is Admitted
The three tests and the four ways they get failed, worked through on a real plan. Run the sessions themselves off a commitment tracker, and once a cohort's plans close out, roll their business impact into one sponsor-facing return with the programme evaluation and ROI pack.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Open the pack in River and send the assessment with the role expectations, or download the Word documents and CSV sheets and fill them in yourself.
- 2
Name the record, not the metric
For every goal, name the log, queue, minute or agenda that already shows it, and who writes that record. Where the answer is the coach, strike the indicator.
- 3
Count the readings before the review
Divide the days between signature and review by each cadence. Anything under three readings gains a faster proxy, moves its review date, or gets agreed now as a single reading.
- 4
Date the manager's half
List the goals that cannot produce a first reading until the sponsor acts, put a committed date on each, and read that column at every three-way session.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. The zip is Word documents and CSV sheets, no account and no card. Edit with AI is the optional half: the agent reads the assessment and the role expectations, then finds the record behind each goal and counts its readings. The rest sit in the template library.
What format are the downloaded files?
Four Word documents and three CSV sheets in one zip, no conversion needed. The sheets carry the columns that do the work: record, produced by, cadence, readings by review. Open them in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, and the plan itself is a .docx.
What does Edit with AI actually do?
It reads the assessment at item level with the rater counts, puts the old and new role descriptions side by side, then tests each drafted goal against the three admissibility questions. It comes back with which goals have a record, and how many times each one can be read before your review date.
All I have is a 360 and a self-assessment. Is that enough?
Enough for baselines, not for progress. A 360 item at 2.1 of 5 is a strong starting number, and re-running it in month five measures the instrument as much as the person. Use the assessment to set the baseline, then find the operational record that moves weekly and read that.
Why count readings rather than just booking quarterly check-ins?
Because the count is fixed on day one and a check-in is not. A quarterly record inside a six-month plan produces two readings whatever you book, and two cannot separate a move from a bounce. Knowing that in week one buys a faster proxy. Knowing it in October buys nothing.
My sponsor will not commit to dates. Is the plan still usable?
Yes, and the note is worth writing anyway. Goals blocked on an unmade decision read zero, so record which ones and why. Federal rules on unacceptable performance make the point: 5 CFR 432.104 requires the employer to afford a reasonable opportunity to improve and to offer assistance as part of it.
Count the readings in week one
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or send River the assessment and the role expectations and get back which goals have a record behind them.
Edit with AI