For many enterprise L&D leaders, the hardest question isn’t how to develop leaders—it’s how to prove that development actually worked.
One global medical technology organization ($6.5B and 30,000 employees) faced this challenge within its Emerging Leaders Program. Like many enterprises, the organization invested heavily in leadership development but struggled to show, with confidence, whether participants were meaningfully improving—or simply completing the program.
To address this, the organization partnered with Pinsight to introduce a simulation-based development and reassessment model, designed to make leadership growth observable over time.
The Challenge
The organization wanted to move beyond one-time assessments and subjective feedback. Specifically, it needed to:
- Establish a credible baseline of leadership performance
- Provide leaders with realistic, role-agnostic practice
- Reassess leaders over time to determine whether behavior actually changed
- Generate individual and cohort insights to sharpen future development priorities
In short, the goal was not just insight—but evidence of progress.
The Approach
Pinsight was integrated into the Emerging Leaders Program as both a development center experience and a longitudinal impact mechanism. Read more about modernizing legacy development centers for global scale and enterprise impact.
Program Design
- Simulation-based development center experience embedded in the program
- Baseline simulation conducted in 2024
- Reassessment simulation conducted in 2025 using a parallel scenario set
- Integration of individual debriefs, management briefs, and cohort-level talent insights
This design allowed the organization to answer a critical question:
Over a year of development, did this cohort measurably increase readiness for next-level leadership?
Scope and Delivery
Participants completed a live, three-hour virtual business simulation replicating a fast-paced “day-in-the-life” leadership environment. Go behind the scenes of a modern executive simulation.
The experience included:
- Real-time emails and written deliverables
- Live role-play interactions with stakeholders
- Strategic decision-making under pressure
- Competing priorities and ambiguous data
Each participant received:
- A 1:1 debrief with a Pinsight facilitator
- A personalized development plan grounded in observed behavior
At the program level, Pinsight delivered:
- Group-level talent insights to inform program priorities
- Management briefs for people leaders, summarizing growth themes and focus areas
This ensured the simulation insights translated into development focus—not just assessment output.
Measured Outcomes and Impact
The reassessment conducted one year after the baseline simulation provided clear, defensible evidence of leadership development impact—most notably in readiness capacity.
Doubling of “Ready Now” Leaders (120% Improvement)
Over the course of the year, the program increased the number of leaders assessed as “ready now” by approximately 120%, effectively more than doubling the organization’s immediate bench strength for next-level leadership roles.
This shift reflected broad movement across the cohort, not isolated individual gains—indicating the program materially strengthened readiness at scale.
Significant Improvement in Overall Leadership Performance
At the cohort level, average leadership performance increased substantially year-over-year:
58% in 2024 → 74% in 2025
This uplift reinforced that readiness gains were supported by meaningful performance improvement across leaders.
Strategic Leadership Capability Strengthened
Leaders also showed significant improvement in enterprise-level capability:
- Strategy alignment improved by 19–21 percentage points
- Participants moved to near or above the Advanced threshold on key strategic dimensions tied to next-role effectiveness
Broad-Based Skill Growth Across Critical Behaviors
The cohort demonstrated notable growth across leadership behaviors strongly associated with next-level success, including:
- Speak with Charisma
- Focus on Customers
- Show Caring
- Sell the Vision
- Innovate
Clear Direction for Next-Phase Development
The reassessment results were also used to refine future program priorities, including continued focus on active listening as a development lever to further strengthen leadership effectiveness.
Why This Matters
For this organization, the value of the approach was not just the initial experience—it was the ability to prove change over time in a way that executives recognize as meaningful.
By combining:
- A realistic, role-agnostic simulation environment
- Behavioral observation and structured evaluation
- Reassessment with a parallel simulation one year later
…the Emerging Leaders Program moved beyond “leaders enjoyed it” to leaders demonstrably improved—and more leaders became ready now.
Learn more about using a readiness metric to prove impact of leadership development.
The Takeaway for Enterprise L&D Leaders
Leadership development impact becomes far more defensible when it is:
- Grounded in observable behavior
- Tracked consistently over time
- Expressed in readiness terms executives understand (bench strength, risk, confidence)
- Converted into coaching-ready actions leaders and managers can reinforce
This case illustrates how a simulation-based development center and reassessment model can help enterprise L&D teams demonstrate impact, accelerate readiness, and reduce leadership risk—without relying on anecdote or indirect proxies.
