Leadership
10 Learning and Development Leadership Challenges in Tech
Get tech leadership development right by understanding—and addressing—the inherent challenges.
October 23, 2025
Why Tech Leadership Development Needs a Human-Centered Reset
The tech industry rewards speed and evolution. But in the rush to grow teams and scale products quickly, leadership development is falling behind. In engineering organizations, it’s common to see high performers promoted based on their coding chops, then left to figure out people leadership all on their own.
The result is often unclear expectations, uneven team performance, and leadership and team burnout.
Tech leaders require more than technical vision. They need human-centered support to guide their teams, influence without ego, and thrive amid pressure. This is where learning and development (L&D) becomes a game-changer for individuals and business.
Below, we unpack the 10 major pain points faced by tech leadership L&D leads and demonstrate how Korn Ferry's Leadership Development solutions help address each challenge.
1 Handling the Steep Learning Curve in Tech
In tech, priorities shift fast. Each sprint or release can change what teams are working on, where resources go, and which problems matter most.
Leaders are expected to make decisions quickly, often with limited information and in environments full of change. Yet many of these leaders have risen through the ranks on technical performance or talent and not been taught how to lead through ambiguity or build trust across hybrid, distributed teams.
Managing teams, working through conflict, and building trust across departments requires more than technical knowledge. It takes a foundation in core leadership skills like coaching, feedback, influence, emotional intelligence, and cross-functional communication. Adding to the challenge, the remote onboarding process common in the tech industry makes it harder for new leaders to build trust, feel part of the culture, and form real connections. From behind a screen, it’s easy to feel isolated and harder to earn credibility with new teams.
Korn Ferry Tip:
Build structured onboarding and early-career leadership programs that mirror the iterative way engineers work. Bite-sized modules, scenario-based learning, and cohort coaching create a safe runway for new leaders to practice, reflect, and build confidence early.
2 Making the Business Case for Tech L&D
Investing in leadership development is a strategic advantage, but it often gets deprioritized by business leaders in favor of shipping features. Taking this short-term view can cost you. Weak leadership slows teams down, increases rework, and drives top talent out the door. In contrast, strong leadership leads to increased productivity and retention of your best workers.
Organizations that prioritize learning and development can tie those efforts to measurable business outcomes such as faster release cadences, improved product quality, and greater customer satisfaction.
When tech leaders are developed with intention, they are more likely to stay, grow, and drive value across the company.
Korn Ferry Tip:
Tie leadership growth to engineering performance metrics such as cycle time, team health scores, and quality. When leaders are skilled in coaching, conflict resolution, and decision-making under pressure, velocity improves across the board.
3 Aligning Learning with Engineering Strategy
L&D can’t live in a silo. If learning isn’t connected to goals like improving code quality or boosting deployment frequency, it won’t gain traction with technical teams.
Development opportunities should support what matters most: delivering on the roadmap, contributing to the community, and building high-quality products. But they should also reflect the values that make a team strong: inclusion, collaboration, and a commitment to growth.
When learning is woven into daily work, it feels less like a burden and more like a shared path to doing better, together.
Korn Ferry Tip:
Co-design learning experiences with engineering leaders. Anchor programs in team objectives (whether it’s open-source contribution or continuous delivery) and reflect the organization’s values, like experimentation or inclusivity. That alignment builds relevance and credibility.
4 Redefining What It Means to Lead in Tech
Many engineers don’t see leadership as part of their role. Often, leadership is presented as something separate from the technical work they enjoy, like solving problems, building systems, and shipping code.
But leading in today’s tech environment involves influencing across teams, solving problems at the system level, and building trust to drive collaboration. These are all skills engineers can develop and use to increase their impact.
When leadership is defined this way, it becomes more relevant to technical professionals. It’s not about leaving engineering behind. It’s about using their strengths to shape outcomes, guide teams, and contribute to the bigger picture.
To succeed, organizations need to treat these leadership capabilities as core to product delivery and strategic growth rather than framing them as optional soft skills.
Korn Ferry Tip:
At Korn Ferry, our approach is to develop Success Profiles that define the skillset and mindset needed to deliver greatness, with benchmarks to measure your talent. We describe the skills, experiences, competencies, and traits successful leaders should possess. Once your Success Profiles are built, then we work with you on assessing against them, and developing what you need to succeed.
5 Evaluating Human Skills
Tech leadership potential is often judged by output such as lines of code, speed of delivery, or technical depth. But those numbers miss the bigger picture. Real leaders create space for others to grow.
In fast-paced engineering teams, what sets leaders apart isn’t always visible in a résumé. It’s how they build trust, foster belonging, and handle tough moments with empathy. These human skills are essential for performance and for the well-being of the whole team.
Korn Ferry Tip:
Broaden how you assess leadership potential. Go beyond performance reviews by using 360 feedback, peer input, and scenario-based simulations. Evaluate qualities like emotional intelligence, communication, and the ability to create psychological safety. These human-centered capabilities are often what separate high-performing teams from those that burn out or break down.
6 Redesigning Learning for the Way Developers Work
Many traditional training programs, especially long, structured workshops, fall flat for developers. Those workshops often feel disconnected from real work, too rigid, or too slow to keep up with evolving tools and frameworks.
Developers thrive in fast-paced, iterative environments. They’re used to testing, tweaking, and learning in the flow of work. Learning experiences should reflect this practical, hands-on, and modular approach.
Design sprints, mentorship sessions, and code clinics resonate more than traditional structured workshops. Customizing the format and cadence of learning to developer workstyles ensures better engagement and higher impact. The best learning journeys feel like part of the work itself, and they offer a rewarding experience that keeps teams energized.
Korn Ferry Tip:
Design learning to match developer behaviors. Think: peer-led code reviews with a leadership lens, sprint retros focused on psychological safety, or quick “leadership sprints” embedded into agile cycles. The more natural it feels, the more likely it is to stick.
7 Building a Culture That Supports Diverse Learning Paths
A one-size-fits-all approach to learning doesn’t work, especially in tech. Product teams often bring together neurodiverse thinkers, early-career coders, deep introverts, and highly collaborative designers. Each learns, communicates, and processes information differently.
To help everyone thrive, learning needs to be flexible, accessible, and tailored to a variety of working styles. That might mean offering asynchronous options, using visual and hands-on formats, or creating quieter spaces for reflection and problem-solving.
In an industry that runs on innovation, inclusive learning is a competitive advantage.
Korn Ferry Tip:
Offer a blend of modalities: sandbox environments for experimentation, 1:1 coaching for deep work, and microlearning for just-in-time needs. Normalize different paths to growth and ensure every learner sees themselves reflected in your leadership development journey.
8 Scaling with a Blend of Technology and Human Insight
As tech companies grow, so must their learning ecosystems. Digital tools, including AI, can personalize development paths at scale, but they can’t replace real human connection.
Internal communities and peer learning networks offer the kind of contextual, trust-based support that technology alone cannot provide. A hybrid approach creates the most resilient and responsive learning environment.
Korn Ferry Tip:
Use technology to surface skill gaps and customize learning, but build peer networks, mentoring circles, and cross-team communities to support human connection. Learning becomes scalable when it’s both data-smart and people-centered.
9 Measuring What Matters Most
Too often, learning success is measured by the wrong things, like attendance rates, course completions, or hours spent in training. These surface metrics don’t tell you whether the learning actually made a difference on the job.
What really matters is impact. Did development programs improve product delivery? Reduce defects? Strengthen team collaboration?
Equally important are indicators of engagement and adoption. It’s about how learning shows up in behavior, not just in dashboards.
When organizations connect learning to business outcomes, they can make better decisions about where to invest and what to scale. That’s how learning becomes a driver of performance, not just a checkbox.
Korn Ferry Tip:
Define meaningful success metrics at the outset. Think improved time to deployment, lower incident rates, and higher team engagement. Link learning investments directly to business outcomes to build executive buy-in and continuous improvement.
10 Keeping People at the Center
Leadership development in tech often focuses on frameworks over people. But leadership isn’t built in a vacuum. It’s shaped through lived experience, feedback, and trust.
The real challenge is creating development environments where tech leaders feel safe to stretch, fail, and grow. That means programs must be inclusive, confidence-building, and grounded in day-to-day realities.
When leaders are supported as people, not just performers, they take that mindset back to their teams. That’s how you build cultures where growth is the norm.
Korn Ferry Tip:
Foster a culture where learning is expected. Make space for experimentation and reflection. Celebrate learning moments just as you would wins in the codebase. When people feel safe to grow, they bring others with them.
The Path Forward
Tech companies that invest in learning and development today are setting the foundation for tomorrow’s success. They are equipping their people to lead well.
Korn Ferry partners with tech teams to design human-centered, data-driven leadership development. When you are ready to close your tech leadership gaps, we are ready to help you build what’s next. Contact a Leadership and Professional Development Expert today.
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