As a Business head, you promoted one of your strongest managers to run a small P&L. A year in, it is not working the way you expected. They deliver. They are respected. Something is missing, and the words available for it are unhelpfully vague: 'Not strategic enough, not yet operating at the level, still too close to the detail.' But no stakeholder (Business, HR, L&D) is able to tell what the person should be doing differently on Monday. The feedback words stay vague because

As a Business head, you approve a budget for leadership development, and the request goes to HR and L&D to work up. What comes back is a calendar. Three programmes, two levels, a vendor shortlist, cost per head, dates that avoid quarter close. Nobody made a mistake. L&D collected needs, HR proposed names, procurement compared days and cost per head, and somebody checked who else had run it. The execution starts, the calendar runs. People attend, rate it well, and go back to t