Jack Zenger, Forbes.com

It’s estimated that $60 billion is spent annually by corporate America on learning and development programs. Over 20 percent—about $12 billion—is spent on programs specifically for executives and managers.

Forget That Survey. Here's Why Journalism Is The Best Job Ever.
Creating Innovators: Why America's Education System Is Obsolete
The 25 Highest Rated CEOs that are Hiring Now (CHART)

I frequently hear comments from skeptics who say something like, “People don’t change. We invest all this time and money, and people stay the same.”  These comments call into question the wisdom of this significant investment being made by corporations worldwide.

I’d be the first to admit that there are programs being provided that are basically a waste of money.  They don’t work for lots of different reasons.  Sometimes the content is irrelevant.  It’s often so abstract and theoretical that no one can figure out how to apply it.  Other times, the delivery is just plain boring, with an instructor lecturing to a group of people who are more engrossed with their iPhone or Blackberry than with becoming better leaders.

But to conclude that leaders cannot or will not change is completely wrong, based on the data we’ve collected.  Let’s look at two extremes.  First, take a minority of leaders who have some behavior or trait that turns people off.  They may possess no energy or enthusiasm for their work.  Maybe they convey extremely low expectations about the quantity and quality of work their team needs to produce. Maybe they have no vision of what the group needs to produce going forward.  They may be lacking in some basic people skills, or unwilling to learn from their mistakes.

We’ve labeled behaviors like these “fatal flaws.”  They are highly visible and drag this person’s effectiveness significantly down.  When their boss, peers and subordinates complete a 360-degree feedback instrument for them, this group would typically be ranked in the bottom 20 percent of all leaders in the firm.  Is there any hope for them?

Here’s a case in point.  We worked with just such a group not long ago.  Eleven of this group had scores on one or more leadership competencies that put them in the bottom 10 percent for that specific competency, and at the 20^th percentile overall.  They decided to work on these really low scores.  Here’s the good news:  A year and a half later this same group was now at the 50^th percentile.  Old dogs can learn new tricks.  People can and do change when placed in the right circumstances.

Now let’s take a more difficult category of leaders.  You may be surprised when I identify this group as leaders who were at the 60^th percentile and who wanted to move up. (We removed any who were already at the 80^th percentile overall, from this analysis.)  The motive of this group?  They were already above average.  The reason was that organizations don’t flourish with average leaders.  The organization soars only when it has exceptional leaders.  So this group of leaders worked on getting better at targeted leadership competencies.

I can’t report that they improved on average by 30 percentile points.  They didn’t.  Nor did everyone improve.  The fact of the matter is that 70 percent improved, and they moved from the 57^th to the  83^rd percentile.  This change was a significant increase.