Why Leadership Training Must Be Ongoing

California's SB 1343 requires employers with 5 or more employees to provide 2 hours of sexual harassment prevention training to supervisors every two years. That requirement is a legal baseline — not a leadership development strategy. The managers who lead well, reduce legal exposure, and retain their teams are the ones whose organizations treat leadership development as a continuous practice, not a compliance event.

Leading people is not a skill a manager masters in a single workshop. It is a practice: setting expectations, listening well, coaching performance, navigating conflict, making decisions, and creating the conditions for people to do their best work. Those skills need reinforcement as a leader's responsibilities, team, and business environment change.

Many people are promoted into management because they are strong individual contributors. That experience matters, but managing people requires a different set of capabilities. A manager must translate business priorities into clear goals, hold productive one-on-one conversations, recognize good work, address concerns early, and help employees grow.

Gallup has reported that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement. That does not mean a manager controls every part of an employee's experience. It does mean that the day-to-day leadership environment has a meaningful influence on whether people feel clear, supported, and able to contribute.

Ongoing training helps leaders build practical habits around the moments that matter most:

• Clarifying priorities and decision rights
• Giving timely, specific feedback
• Coaching employees instead of solving every problem for them
• Addressing performance concerns consistently and respectfully — with documentation that protects the organization
• Building trust through follow-through and fair treatment
• Leading teams through change and uncertainty

A well-designed workshop can create momentum. Participants may leave with a shared language, a useful framework, and a few actions they want to try. The challenge is that insight alone does not reliably become a new leadership habit.

Research on learning and development consistently points to the value of practice, feedback, and reinforcement. People are more likely to retain and use a skill when they revisit it, apply it in realistic situations, and receive coaching on what worked and what did not. This is especially true for interpersonal leadership skills, where context and judgment matter.

For example, a manager may understand the principles of effective feedback in a training session. The real test comes when they need to discuss missed expectations with a valued employee, respond to defensiveness, or balance accountability with support. Follow-up learning gives that manager a place to prepare, practice, and improve rather than relying on memory from a single class.

In California, supervisors are not just managers — they are agents of the employer with specific legal obligations under FEHA, CFRA, and the Labor Code. Ongoing leadership development is also ongoing risk management.

Useful ongoing topics for California supervisors include:

SB 1343 training every two years is the legal minimum. But supervisors who understand FEHA's broader prohibitions — including the obligation to escalate complaints rather than handle them informally, and the personal liability they carry for harassment they commit — are far better positioned to protect themselves and the organization.

California's CFRA applies to employers with 5 or more employees and provides up to 12 weeks of protected leave per year. Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) provides up to 4 months of additional protected leave. Supervisors who do not understand these entitlements — or who make comments that could be construed as discouraging leave — create retaliation exposure.

In California, the documentation trail around performance issues is critical. A termination that follows months of undocumented concerns looks retaliatory even when it is not. Supervisors need ongoing practice with how to document performance conversations clearly, consistently, and in a way that supports defensible employment decisions.

Leaders influence whether team members feel heard, respected, and able to contribute. Under FEHA, inconsistent treatment of employees in protected classes — even without discriminatory intent — can support a discrimination claim. Development can help managers notice assumptions, invite different perspectives, and make decisions in ways that build trust and reduce legal exposure.

When people work across locations or schedules, leaders need intentional communication rhythms, clear outcomes, and equitable access to information. These are learned practices, not automatic outcomes of a video meeting.

An ongoing approach does not have to mean constant, time-consuming classes. It can be a practical rhythm that combines formal learning with support on the job:

• A foundational program for new and emerging managers
• Short, recurring learning sessions focused on real leadership challenges
• Manager peer groups where leaders discuss cases and share approaches
• Coaching for leaders in high-impact or complex roles
• Job aids, conversation guides, and documentation templates that support daily practice
• Feedback from employees, peers, and senior leaders to identify growth areas

The goal is not to overwhelm managers with content. It is to make leadership expectations visible and give people repeated opportunities to build the skills required to meet them.

Completion rates tell you who attended. They do not tell you whether leadership behavior changed. A stronger evaluation approach looks at both learning and application.

Organizations can track indicators such as manager confidence, employee feedback, quality of one-on-one conversations, clarity of goals, internal mobility, retention patterns, and recurring performance issues. It is also important to ask employees directly: Do they understand what is expected? Do they receive useful feedback? Do they feel their manager listens and follows through?

Those questions connect leadership development to the everyday experience of being led — and to the legal risk profile of the organization.

Organizations ask managers to lead people through complex, human situations every day. Expecting them to do that well with only a biennial SB 1343 training is a missed opportunity — and a compliance risk.

Ongoing leadership training gives managers the tools, practice, and support to lead with greater clarity, consistency, and care. When leaders keep learning, teams are better positioned to communicate, adapt, and perform — and organizations are better protected.

If you are evaluating how your organization develops managers, begin with the leadership moments that matter most to your people. Then build a learning rhythm that helps leaders practice those skills long after the first training session ends.

Solis Consulting helps California organizations develop practical, confident leaders who can communicate clearly, coach performance, and lead teams through change — while managing the legal obligations that come with the supervisor role. Our HR advisory and leadership development services are tailored to the real challenges your managers face.

Ready to strengthen your leadership bench? Schedule a consultation to discuss a leadership development approach that fits your organization.

This article is for general educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. California employers should consult the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) and qualified employment counsel for guidance specific to their organization.