Many leaders don't have time or energy to think about improvement when times are hard (or when times are good!).
When times are neither good or bad, they want something "out there" to change.
Discovering the "six stages of change" model, and especially understanding the first two stages (where most of my potential clients are relative to "leadership development"), has been hugely enlightening.
Take a look at this week's article, “Times are Hard! I Can’t Focus on Improvement Now!” Can you see that most organizations that have never thought seriously about any systematic approach to leadership development are in the precontemplation stage?
If I can just get them to move to "contemplation," that would be huge progress!
Dennis