About the Leadership ROI Benchmark: How we built it, what it measures, and why the scores mean something.
Where the data comes from
The Leadership ROI Benchmark is grounded in primary research conducted with senior HR leaders across South Africa and beyond, representing over 100 organisations.
Organisations represented in the sample employ 500 or more people, with workforces that are predominantly white-collar employees. The sample spans a range of industries, reflecting the breadth of contexts in which HR leaders are making investment decisions around female talent.
The survey captures both the current state of leadership development practices and the outcomes organisations are achieving, including progression, retention, and engagement of female leaders. It also assesses the extent to which organisations are taking deliberate, measurable action to develop this talent segment.
From survey to benchmark
The Leadership ROI Benchmark translates your responses into a score that reflects where your organisation sits relative to peers in the research sample.
Rather than applying predefined or theoretical scoring rules, the benchmark is anchored in how organisations in the sample actually responded.
For each question, answer options are scored based on their position within the distribution of responses. In practical terms, this means your score reflects how your organisation compares to others in the dataset. For example, a score of 60 indicates that your response is stronger than approximately 60% of participating organisations.
These individual question scores are then combined into a composite score using a weighted model.
Importantly, these weights are not arbitrary. They are informed by the survey’s outcomes data, specifically, the extent to which different practices were associated with stronger results in:
engagement,
retention, and
progression of women leaders.
Practices that show a stronger relationship to these outcomes carry more weight in the final score, ensuring that the benchmark reflects what is actually working in practice, not just what is commonly reported.
How benchmark bands are defined
Your composite score places your organisation within one of four results bands. These bands are anchored to natural groupings in the distribution of scores across the sample.
This means that each band reflects a meaningful shift in how organisations are approaching women leadership development, not just a numerical difference.
The band result reflects the extent to which leadership development is embedded as a system — across measurement, behavioural reinforcement, performance linkage, enterprise integration, and longitudinal tracking.
Capacity at risk (band 1)
Clear intent is evident, with leadership development practices in place. However, these efforts are often fragmented, inconsistently applied, and not yet systematically linked to measurable organisational impact.Behavioural reinforcement is limited, and leadership data is not yet used to meaningfully inform business decisions. As a result, development activity may not consistently translate into observable performance shifts.
Gaining momentum (band 2)
Leadership development practices are more structured and consistently applied, with mechanisms in place to reinforce behaviour and track elements of impact.There is growing visibility of leadership capability improvement. However, integration into broader enterprise systems, and clear linkage to business performance, remains partial. Development is driving progress, but the full value is not yet being realised at an organisational level.
Thriving (band 3)
Leadership development is well-aligned to measurable outcomes, with clear evidence of impact at both individual and business levels.Behavioural shifts are actively reinforced, and performance data is used to track progress over time. Leadership capability is increasingly treated as a strategic lever, with stronger links to business performance and talent decisions.
Pioneering (band 4)
Leadership performance operates as a continuous enterprise system.
Capability movement is tracked longitudinally, reinforced behaviourally, and directly linked to business outcomes. Leadership data is embedded in succession planning, talent strategy, and enterprise decision-making.
Leadership intelligence functions as a strategic asset, informing not only development, but also forecasting, risk management, and organisational performance.
A note on interpretation
The Leadership ROI Benchmark is designed as a diagnostic tool, not a definitive audit.
Your score reflects the information you provide and how it compares to peer organisations at a point in time. It is intended to surface areas of strength and opportunity, not to render a final judgement on your organisation’s commitment to gender equity.
While the sample is meaningful in size and relevance for specialist research of this nature, context always matters. A score that appears modest in one organisation may reflect structural constraints or industry dynamics that this framework does not fully capture.
We encourage you to use your results as a starting point for informed conversation, prioritisation, and action.