Leadership Development Plan Example for Middle Managers

Creating a leadership development plan can feel like one of those tasks that everyone agrees is important, yet no one has time for. It’s complex, ambiguous, and often gets pushed to the bottom of the list until a performance issue, engagement dip, or turnover spike forces it back into the spotlight.

If you’ve been tasked with building a leadership development plan for your middle managers, it can feel daunting — and that’s because it’s important. The good news is that being chosen for this work means two things: the business wants to invest in leadership, and they trust you to shape how it grows. While that insight might not make the process any less stressful, know that you’re not alone. We hear all the time how challenging this task can be. 

Having a leadership development plan example to reference can make the work feel more manageable. That’s exactly why we’re sharing the approach we use and the clear, structured guide we’ve built, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

This guide walks you through a simple, repeatable framework you can use with any manager: the SOAR model—Strategy, Opportunity, Action, Reflection. You can adapt it, expand it, or simplify it depending on your team’s needs. But the core idea stays the same: leadership development should be intentional, aligned with objectives, and actionable.

Let’s walk through each step and then bring it all together with a complete leadership development plan example you can use as a template.

Why Middle Managers Need a Clear Development Plan

Before diving into the framework, it’s worth acknowledging why this work matters so much, especially for middle managers.

Middle managers sit at the most complex intersection of the organization. They translate strategy into execution. They coach frontline employees. They manage up, down, and sideways. They’re responsible for performance, morale, communication, and culture—often without formal training or support.

When middle managers grow, the entire organization grows. When they struggle, the ripple effects are immediate and costly.

A strong leadership development plan gives them:

• Clarity on what’s expected
• Confidence in how to grow
• Support in building new skills
• A sense of purpose and direction
• A roadmap that connects their development to business outcomes

And for you, it becomes a tool that reduces guesswork, increases consistency, and helps you demonstrate the impact of your HR or Talent Development function.

The SOAR Model: A Simple Framework for Leadership Development

The SOAR model helps you build a leadership development plan that is both personalized and aligned with organizational needs. It includes four components:

1. Strategy – What the organization is trying to achieve
2. Opportunity – Where the manager needs to grow
3. Action – What the manager will do to build those skills
4. Reflection – How the manager will assess progress and adjust

Let’s break each one down.

Your job is to choose the most pressing strategic goals, so that you can translate them into leadership capabilities in the next step. For example:

• If the business is focused on reducing employee turnover, managers may need stronger coaching, recognition, and communication skills.
• If the priority is operational efficiency, managers may need to improve delegation, prioritization, and accountability.
• If the goal is expansion, managers may need to strengthen decision-making, adaptability, and team development.

This is where having a leadership skills guide or competency framework is invaluable. It helps you map strategic goals to specific skills that managers need to demonstrate. If you don’t have one, you can use a simple list of core leadership skills—communication, coaching, accountability, empathy, decision-making, conflict management, and so on.

Why Strategy Matters

Without strategy, leadership development becomes generic. It turns into a list of “nice-to-have” skills instead of a targeted plan that drives business outcomes. When you anchor development to strategy, you ensure that it has real value for the business and that the managers understand the “why.” And more importantly, you avoid wasting time on skills that don’t matter.

2. Opportunity: Identify the Leader’s Growth Areas

Once you know what the business needs, you can identify what the individual leader needs.

Opportunity answers the question: “Where does this manager need to grow to support the strategy?”

You can identify opportunities through:

• Self-assessments
• 360 feedback
• Performance reviews
• Skip-level conversations
• Employee engagement data
• Observation
• Coaching conversations

While organizational gaps often show up in the Strategy section, the Opportunity section is about the person. It’s where you help each manager understand their personal growth areas.

Examples of opportunities might include:

• “Be more assertive and timely when giving feedback.”
• “Let go of control and delegate ownership more consistently.”
• “Speak up with confidence and clarity when communicating with senior leaders.”
• “Ask more coaching questions and avoid jumping to solutions.”
• “Maintain composure when dealing with difficult conversations.”

Why Opportunity Matters

Focusing on a manager’s growth opportunities ensures development is personalized to their needs. It also prevents the common trap of spending time on skills or behaviors that a manager already excels at.

A quick note: strengths-based development is valuable, and you can absolutely build on strengths. But when it comes to leadership development plans, you want to prioritize the areas that will have the biggest impact on improving performance, culture, and alignment with strategy.

3. Action: Turn Insight Into Practice

This is where development becomes real. Growth doesn’t happen through passive consumption of training content, like watching videos, reading articles, or sitting through presentations. It happens through practice having real conversations, making real decisions, and navigating real challenges.

Action answers the question: “What will the manager do to build these skills?”

You can structure actions in several ways:

On-the-job practice

• Leading a team meeting with a specific communication goal
• Delegating a project using a new framework
• Conducting a coaching conversation
• Facilitating a conflict-resolution discussion
• Running a retrospective or feedback session

Learning activities

• Guided practice sessions
• Skill-building drills
• Simulations
• Scenario-based role-plays
• Shadowing another leader

Social activities that reinforce practice

• Regular coaching sessions
• Mentorship
• Monthly check-ins with their manager
• Accountability partners

And when you create the action plan, make it specific and observable. For example:

• “Conduct monthly 1:1s using a coaching structure and document outcomes.”
• “Delegate one major project this quarter and review progress weekly.”
• “Practice giving behavior-based feedback each week.”
• “Facilitate one cross-functional meeting per month to build communication confidence.”

Why Action Matters

This is where most leadership development plans fall apart. They identify goals but don’t define what the leader will do to grow. When you give managers clear, practical actions, you remove ambiguity and increase follow-through.

4. Reflection: Measure Progress and Adjust

While action is the step where individual development plans unravel, reflection is the step most teams forget about, so be sure to include it in your planning process. Reflection is where managers internalize their wins, understand their personal influence over outcomes, and chart a clearer path for how to show up differently next time.

Reflection answers the question: “How is it going, and what needs to change?”

Reflection includes two components:

Self-reflection

Encourage managers to ask themselves:

• What feels easier now?
• What still feels challenging?
• Where have I seen progress?
• What situations triggered old habits?
• What support do I need?

External feedback

This can come from:

• Their manager
• A mentor
• A coach
• A trusted colleague
• Their team

To keep managers on track, you can structure reflections through monthly check-ins, quarterly reviews, written reflections, coaching conversations, or even peer discussions.

Why Reflection Matters

Reflection helps managers internalize what they’re learning. It also helps you adjust the plan as the business evolves. Without reflection, development becomes a checklist instead of a growth process.

Leadership Development Plan Example (Complete SOAR Model)

Below is a full leadership development plan example you can use as a template or starting point. This example comes from the leadership development plan for a Regional Manager at a 300-unit retail business that is investing in upskilling leaders at all levels. 

Conclusion

Creating a leadership development plan for middle managers doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With the SOAR model, you have a simple, repeatable structure that keeps development aligned with strategy, personalized to each leader, grounded in real action, and supported through reflection.

And here’s the truth: most teams don’t do this well. When you build a thoughtful, strategic, actionable plan, you’ll be ahead of the pack. You’re elevating the capability of your entire organization, while giving managers the clarity and confidence they need to lead well.