The world of learning and development (L&D) is constantly shifting, and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is causing many of us to pause and reflect. We are realizing knowledge transfer alone doesn’t transform people; connection does. When people come together in genuine dialogue, they build trust, community and a shared sense of purpose.

From here, people can learn and hone their leadership skills.

For almost 20 years, we’ve been pioneering an innovative approach to learning. A leadership development group (i.e., also referred to as a “peer learning group,” a “small group dialogue circle” or a “peer coaching group”) brings together 4-6 learners for 90-minute sessions to discover and grow their leadership capacities.

Unlike cohort-based learning, in which the group is often focused on learning content together, a leadership development group functions more like group coaching with content. Participants learn from one another’s experiences and current situations, guided by a structured guidebook with expert content on the theme of each session (e.g., accountability, engagement, managerial agility).

Learning happens through structured conversation and social learning — the 20% in the 70-20-10 Model — and through reflection on experience, the underappreciated linchpin of the 70%. For the 10%, and to weave these elements together, the guidebook provides expert content and guiding questions to shape the learning flow.

Facilitation, then, becomes something more than managing participation or discussion. In a leadership development group, the facilitator nurtures the conditions for learning to emerge, rather than directing it. Over time, facilitation becomes a shared capacity that everyone in the group contributes to.

The Art of Not Over Facilitating

The traditional model of facilitation grew out of the mid-20th-century training and organizational development movement — influenced by industrial psychology, T-groups and later, corporate instructional design. Essentially, this model sees the facilitator as managing the process and responsible for its outcomes. A traditional facilitator controls pace and manages participation, for example, by prompting, “Let’s hear from someone who hasn’t spoken yet.” Their focus may be on drawing out learning from the participants by reframing, summarizing and often filling in pauses with commentary. Silence is typically seen as a problem to fix.

A metaphor may be helpful here: Facilitating emergent learning is like caring for a houseplant. If you’re new to plants, you might overdo it — you water, add fertilizer sticks and when the leaves wilt, you water again. Before long, the plant looks dismal and you realize you’ve been over-tending it.

Over facilitation works the same way: too much tending chokes emergent dialogue and growth.

Rather than directing conversation, effective facilitators:

• Clarify intention, not control direction.
• Create safety, not structure every step.
• Follow what’s alive, rather than strictly adhering to what’s on the agenda.
• Trust pauses or silences as signs of depth.

At first, facilitators typically over-facilitate learning sessions. They may read the pages for the participants, model by answering the questions themselves, and fill silences with their own ideas. Almost twenty years in the business has shown us that the most underrated skill in facilitating leadership development groups is restraint.

We see repeatedly that the most transformative sessions happen when the facilitator steps back: when they allow pauses to be long, when participants can follow their curiosity and when facilitators allow meaning to surface through mutual reflection rather than guided instruction. To “under facilitate” isn’t being unskillful but rather to take a personal leap of faith and trust in the group’s intelligence. When facilitators feel the need to constantly steer, summarize and connect, they can unintentionally stifle the very emergence that makes leadership development groups so powerful. This urge often comes from a place of care or pressure (“I want people to get value”) but shows up as control (“I must keep things moving”).

In leadership development groups, conversation becomes self-organizing when the conditions are right. The facilitator’s work is to tend those conditions.

Effective leadership development group facilitators know they have done their job well when the group feels enough psychological safety to start co-facilitating. Participants realize they don’t need to follow a rigid process or perform. They can just show up as themselves. Once participants reach this point, dialogue flows like a river: winding and full of new insights as people engage with their experiences, ideas and perspectives.

Practical Suggestions for Leadership Training Facilitators

Consider the following suggestions to incorporate as you facilitate leadership training efforts in your organization:

1. Orient People: Welcome people and explain that you are the timekeeper and not the teacher. You will support them, but it is their conversation. The expectation is that everyone will take turns reading the content and contribute equally. You will intervene if the group goes wildly off topic.
2. Hold the Space, Not the Floor: Your role is to create a safe, spacious container, not to dominate it. Remind people that there are no right or wrong answers, just perspectives that help everyone understand the complexity of their experiences and the content.
3. Trust the Silences: Don’t rush to fill pauses. Silence may be much needed integration time. You will be surprised by what surfaces if you are patient.
4. Invite Curiosity Over Certainty: Let participants explore complexity without rushing to resolution. Instead of thinking, “What’s the right answer?” think, “Why are things happening the way they are in our organization or in this situation?”
5. Listen With Full Attention: Openness and presence invite the same in others.
6. Tend the Relationships: Every session helps build the organization’s network of relationships. Simply notice these connections, as they provide real value for both participants and the organization.
7. Share the Role: Your success as a leadership training facilitator is proven when the group doesn’t need you anymore.

Closing Thought

Facilitation within a leadership development group context reinforces the fact that wisdom emerges between people, not above them. When the facilitator steps back and the group learns to hold itself, people will offer their insights and expertise as needed, participating as equals in a shared learning process. The facilitator’s role is to create the conditions and spaciousness for this to unfold.

As you reflect, consider: Are you cultivating dependency on facilitation, or enabling self-organizing, peer-held learning? And what design choices —group size, cadence or question framing — could strengthen equality, voice and shared responsibility? Ultimately, the goal is to foster a learning environment where insight and growth emerge naturally from the group itself.