Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Leadership development should solve a business problem—not just build skills.

Organizations come to MDA when leadership challenges start to impact results:

  • Leadership gaps are slowing execution or performance
  • A high-potential development program is not producing ready-now leaders
  • Directors are struggling to navigate change and transformation
  • Vice presidents are not translating strategy into execution
  • Growth is outpacing the strength of the leadership pipeline

We design leadership development programs that address these moments directly—combining science-backed methods, real business application, and AI-enabled learning to drive measurable shifts in how leaders perform.

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Why trust MDA for Leadership Development Programs?

Changing performance, not just capability™

Organizations bring MDA in when leadership development must deliver more than just insight or training—when it must align leadership behavior, strengthen execution, and move the business forward.

We design fully customized leadership development programs around real strategic priorities—whether that means launching a high-potential development program, overhauling an existing program, accelerating the readiness of leaders to meet growth opportunities, or aligning leaders after a merger or transformation.

Our approach integrates:

  • A proven behavior change process (Awaken, Align, Accelerate®) that moves your leaders from insight to action

  • Cohort-based development that drives alignment across leadership levels and functions

  • AI-enabled and experiential learning that allows your leaders to practice high-stakes conversations and decisions in a safe environment

  • Embedded measurement that tracks how leadership behavior is shifting across individuals, teams, and culture

Leadership development is a significant investment. That’s why we go beyond reporting simple ROI to providing detailed measurement that helps you understand what’s working, who is ready, where risks lie, and the next best steps.

Leadership Development Solutions

Senior Leaders and High Potentials

Leading the Enterprise

Accelerate readiness for enterprise-level leadership. Leaders increase self-wisdom and leadership impact through assessment and feedback, experiential learning, and teamwork on real business challenges. We offer both short-cycle programs, covering 6 months, as well as long-cycle programs, covering 9-12 months.

Mid-Level Leaders

Leading Leaders Program

Develop leaders who can successfully lead other leaders in a fast-changing world. Our programs accelerate leader development in five critical roles that are predictive of high performance: strategist, talent developer, change leader, internal influencer, and results orchestrator.

Early Career Leaders

Bench Strength Experience

Build foundational leadership capability early. Strengthen self-awareness through MDA’s validated high-potential assessment, enhance communication skills, and increase execution discipline to improve current performance and accelerate readiness for larger roles.

Multi-Level & Scalable Solutions

Large Event Experiences

Inject a high-impact experience into your next large leadership gathering. MDA’s dynamic keynote speakers and expert facilitators provide compelling content and help leaders grasp the essential power skills needed for a fast-evolving workplace with interactive designs that keep large audiences active and engaged.

Development Accelerators

Targeted, high-impact experiences to build specific leadership skills quickly—often tied to immediate business needs. The essential skills needed to lead effectively today are best developed in cohort groups, where expert facilitation, peer coaching, and targeted practice embed learning and align leaders on what “great” looks like (2-, 4-, and 8-hour session options available).

Cohort Growth Planning

Achieve efficient, cost-effective assessment and development planning at scale. In a sequence of three short, virtual sessions, leaders translate assessment insights into actionable growth plans, receive peer coaching, and align with their managers on their final development plans.

AI-Enabled Workouts

Practice critical leadership moments—like feedback, performance conversations, influencing, strategic decision-making, and managing profitability—using AI-enabled simulations that build competence through repetition and feedback. These AI-powered solutions allow leaders to engage in realistic scenarios; receive immediate, rich feedback; and accelerate skill development in a no-risk environment.

Proof of Impact

Leadership development that translates into real business outcomes.

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out of 50 leaders who attended MDA’s customized leadership program advanced into General Manager and Function Leader roles within two years—fueling growth from $1B to $3B over the next six years.
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The percent of leaders who strongly agreed that MDA’s Leading Leaders program was a powerful learning experience that they were proud to be part of and would recommend to others.
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Organization more than tripled in size from $2 billion in 2010 to $6.7 billion in 2024. Growth attributed to building the leadership capability necessary to deliver on the business strategy.

Where does MDA Leadership Development make the biggest difference?

  • When leadership gaps are slowing the business: Breakdowns in execution, competing priorities, siloed behavior, differing viewpoints, or underperforming teams often trace back to gaps in leadership capability—not strategy.

  • When your leadership pipeline is not keeping up with growth: We help organizations accelerate readiness and build a stronger bench—so your high-potential development program produces leaders who are ready when it matters.

  • When alignment across leaders matters most: Business transformation or change initiatives, post-merger integration, addressing organizational performance issues (such as poor engagement scores or lack of desired agility and collaboration), and culture shifts require leaders who operate with shared expectations and consistent leadership standards.

  • When leadership development must deliver measurable business impact: We design award-winning programs that connect directly to business outcomes—so leadership development tangibly improves performance, not just potential capability.

What Sets Us Apart

Award-winning Design

Our programs are consistently recognized for excellence in design and impact measurement, including a globally competitive Brandon Hall Gold Medal for Excellence in Leadership Development.

Contextualized at Scale

We build aligned leadership cohorts with shared standards—while grounding development in your business context.

Behavior Change You Can See

We focus on observable shifts in how leaders lead—how they show up, communicate, and drive performance—not just what they know. We go beyond leaders’ self-reported improvement to gain the measurable change and impact reported by others with whom they work.

Measurement That Demonstrates Impact

We measure improved performance and business impact. And you gain deep insights into where leadership is improving, who is ready, where risk remains, and what should happen next.

What Our Clients Say

Business impact

MDA partners with us on a leadership development program that has had major benefits for our businesses. The program not only accelerates the development of our leaders, but it has also delivered real, tangible benefits to our businesses by organizing program participants into teams that tackle complex challenges.

John Abbott
President, Varistar Manufacturing; Senior Vice President, Otter Tail Corporation

Long-term dividends

Out of the top 20 leaders in the company, about 15 of them have been through one of our MDA-led programs. It’s an investment in our talent and our company that pays dividends time and time again. It sets us above our competition, and we get selected and re-selected for work because of the people that we have, so investing in our talent is hugely important and something we will never stop doing.

Mike Hoover
CEO and Chairman, Sundt Construction

Competitive differentiation

We’ve recognized that leadership development is vitally important not only for business performance, but also from an employee value proposition and retention perspective. It shows we invest in our people, and it differentiates us from other companies.

Paul Knutson
Chief Human Resources Officer, Otter Tail Corporation

Featured Resources

Pursuing steady growth through powerful leadership development

Measuring leadership development program impact

Learn how Mortenson builds enterprise-ready leaders to compete, differentiate, and scale

Leadership Development Programs FAQs

What makes MDA different from other leadership development consultants?

Most leadership development consultants focus on building skills or delivering content at scale. MDA focuses on changing how leaders actually lead—and how the business performs as a result.

Our leadership development programs are fully customized to your business context and built around real strategic challenges. We emphasize observable behavior change, alignment across leadership levels, and measurement that informs direction—not just participation metrics or ROI reporting.

How do leadership development programs strengthen the leadership pipeline?

Effective leadership development programs build a stronger leadership pipeline by accelerating readiness at key transition points—early leadership, mid-level leadership, and senior leadership.

At MDA, we’re a leadership development consultant that focuses on:

  • Preparing leaders for the next level before they are promoted
  • Aligning leadership expectations across levels
  • Identifying and closing readiness gaps earlier and faster
  • Creating a high-performing leadership culture

This ensures your pipeline produces leaders who can step in and perform—not learn on the job at the organization’s expense.

What are essential elements of a strong high-potential development program?

A strong high-potential development program goes beyond classroom learning. It integrates assessment, feedback, coaching, and real business application.

MDA’s approach includes:

  • Development tied to real strategic initiatives
  • Cohort-based experiences that build alignment, networks, and collective capability
  • Executive-level facilitation that challenges thinking
  • Solving real business problems to accelerate development and business results
  • AI-enabled practice to strengthen conversational competence

The goal is to accelerate readiness for next-level leadership—not just increase knowledge.

How does MDA measure the impact of leadership development programs?

MDA measures impact across three levels:

  • Individual leader behavior change
  • Team performance and effectiveness
  • Broader cultural alignment and/or business performance

Our approach goes beyond ROI reporting. We provide insight into where leadership is improving, who is ready, where risk remains, and what should happen next.

How are leading organizations embedding AI into leadership development programs?

MDA integrates AI-enabled experiential learning tools into its leadership development programs that allow leaders to practice real-world scenarios in a safe environment.

For example, leaders engage in AI-powered simulations to practice:

  • Giving feedback
  • Managing performance
  • Navigating conflict
  • Influencing decisions
  • Strategic problem solving
  • Managing profitability

AI-powered simulations coupled with expert facilitation provide learners with immediate feedback and multiple practice “reps” to accelerate skill development in new ways.

Take the First Step: Leadership Development Ecosystem Audit

MDA’s Ecosystem Audit is a strategic diagnostic that evaluates an organization’s entire leadership development system—not just its training programs—to determine whether it can consistently produce the leaders needed to execute strategy today and into the future.

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Phone: +1 612.332.8182   |   info@mdaleadership.com   |   Address: 225 South Sixth Street, Suite 5000, Minneapolis, MN 55402

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