Your Team is Watching: How Great L&D Leaders Inspire

Leading a Learning & Development function isn’t just about delivering programmes or tracking completion rates. It’s about creating a ripple effect. Because whether you realise it or not, your team is watching you.

• They’re watching how you show up in meetings.

• They’re watching how you prioritise your time.

• They’re watching how you respond under pressure, and how you celebrate the wins.

That ripple, your leadership presence, has the power to shape culture, influence performance, and determine whether your team merely functions or truly flourishes.

The Mirror of Leadership

As L&D leaders, we talk a lot about “modelling the behaviour we want to see.” But how often do we take time to develop our own leadership, to reflect on how we’re growing, learning, and influencing the wider organisation?

If you're constantly buried in delivery, firefighting requests, or pushing to prove ROI, your team will take that as the norm. But if you show up with purpose, clarity, and strategic direction, they’ll rise to meet that energy.

Your development isn’t a luxury, it’s a lever.

Leadership is Contagious

The most high-impact L&D teams I’ve worked with around the world, from the US to Australia, are led by people who invest in their own growth. They see leadership as a craft, not just a title. And they know that their energy, focus, and mindset sets the tone for everything their team delivers.

Here’s the truth: you can’t expect your team to evolve if you’re not evolving too.

When you work on your personal influence, when you carve out space for strategic thinking, and when you demonstrate resilience in the face of change, your team doesn’t just benefit, they follow.

Develop Yourself. Empower Your Team.

That’s why the TwentyOne Leadership L&D Academy puts as much focus on personal leadership development as it does on team capability.

In our programmes, we help L&D leaders:

• Define their leadership narrative and career goals

• Build credibility with senior stakeholders

• Coach and develop their teams using brain-friendly learning principles

• Align their L&D strategy with business outcomes

  
  

The result? You grow your influence, and your team grows with you.

Because when your people see you investing in your own development, when they see you lead with purpose and clarity, it gives them permission, and inspiration, to do the same.

Lead the Way

Your team doesn’t need a perfect leader. They need an intentional one.

Someone who takes the time to grow, reflect, and lead by example. Someone who’s bold enough to challenge the status quo and strategic enough to shape the future.

If that sounds like the next chapter you want to write, the L&D Academy is here to support you.

Email me at matt@twentyoneleadership.com to explore how we can help you lead the change, because your team is watching, and the best L&D leaders make it worth their while.