What Should a Leadership Training Program RFP Ask For?
Published November 3, 2026 · By the Stratos Coaching Team — Certified Executive Coach (CEC)
A leadership training program RFP should make vendors name the behaviors they will change, show how those behaviors are practiced and observed, and price the whole engagement per participant. Here is the question list we would put in front of any vendor, written for L&D and talent leaders buying for senior managers, directors, and VPs.
What should a leadership training program RFP ask for?
A leadership training program RFP should ask vendors for five things: the specific behaviors participants will change, how those behaviors are practiced and observed after the sessions, who delivers and what operating experience they hold, how results are measured over time, and the full cost per participant. A vendor who cannot answer all five is selling content, not change.
- What behaviors should an RFP make vendors name?
- How should an RFP require proof of practice, not attendance?
- What follow-through should the RFP demand after the last session?
- Who should deliver the program, and what should the RFP ask about them?
- What should the RFP require on pricing?
- What people ask in peer forums
- Frequently asked questions
What behaviors should an RFP make vendors name?
The first line of the RFP should be the behavior you want to see on the calendar in six months, not the topic you want covered. Most proposals arrive organized by topic: communication, strategy, delegation. Topics describe content. Behaviors describe change. Ask each vendor to name, for your target audience, the one to three specific things a participant will do differently, and how an observer would know.
The Certified Executive Coach (CEC) curriculum we train under sets a clear standard for this. It says the target behavior should be "stated as something to do, not something to stop doing (so that it can be observed and measured)." It also warns against large, subjective patterns. "Be less defensive" fails that test. "Ask two open questions before giving a view in the weekly staff meeting" passes it. A vendor who cannot write your goal that way will struggle to prove it was met. The same logic runs through our Altitude Framework.
For a longer buyer-side checklist, see our guide on how to evaluate leadership training programs. This post covers the narrower question of what to write into the request itself.
How should an RFP require proof of practice, not attendance?
Ask what participants do in the room that resembles what they will do on Monday. Slides and case discussions build understanding. Behavior changes through rehearsal, so the RFP should require a rehearsal method and ask the vendor to describe it in plain terms.
The CEC training and facilitation deck is specific here. Its rehearsal step runs in short rounds of about two minutes, puts the most time into a crisp opening line before moving to objections, and says the coach should not "let the client be hypothetical." The instruction is to "have the real conversation." That means the participant says the actual words to an actual colleague, not a description of what they might say. Ask vendors how many rounds each participant completes, with whom, and who gives the feedback.
If the program is built for a group, ask how rehearsal works at scale. Pairs and small triads work. A lecture hall does not. Our approach to cohorts is described on the group coaching for leadership teams page.
What follow-through should the RFP demand after the last session?
Require a plan for the months after the program ends. This is our own argument, not a claim from the CEC materials: a training event without a follow-through loop tends to fade, because the work environment pulls people back to old habits within weeks. The evidence is suggestive rather than settled. In a 1997 field study published in Public Personnel Management, managers at a public health agency showed an average productivity increase of 22.4 percent after training alone and 88.0 percent when training was followed by coaching. The sample was 31 people, there was no random assignment, and the authors say some threats to validity cannot be ruled out. Read it as a reason to ask, not as proof.
The CEC deck describes one concrete loop. Each month the participant gets feedback from about five people who see them work, in a live conversation rather than by email. Those supporters score from 1 to 5 how often they observed the target behavior. The stated goal is three months in a row averaging 4 to 5. You do not need to copy that design, but the RFP should require something with the same properties: named observers, a scored measure, a monthly rhythm, and a defined finish line.
Ask every vendor what happens in month four. Then compare the answers against the cost of the engagement, which you can benchmark against the ranges in our cost of executive coaching guide.
Who should deliver the program, and what should the RFP ask about them?
Ask who will stand in front of your participants, by name, and what they have run. Facilitators who have held a VP or C-suite seat teach differently from facilitators who have studied it. For senior audiences the difference shows up in the first fifteen minutes, when a participant asks a question the slide did not anticipate.
Our coaches are current and former C-suite leaders, and the lead coach holds the Certified Executive Coach credential. Whatever vendor you choose, ask for the delivery team's operating background, their coaching credentials, and whether the people who sell the program are the people who deliver it. If your participants are senior managers and directors being prepared for VP scope, the corporate coaching programs and leadership training programs pages show how we structure delivery for that audience.
The buyer is usually L&D, a head of talent, or a CHRO, and the participants are often one level below the people who approve the budget. The RFP should say who the participants are, what role they are being prepared for, and who their managers are. Vendors can then propose a manager briefing, which is a cheap addition that changes results.
What should the RFP require on pricing?
Ask for one all-in price per participant that covers design, delivery, assessments, rehearsal, follow-through, and reporting. Group and team programs typically run $1,500 to $5,000 per participant, or $500 to $2,500 per session, and a 360 assessment adds $2,000 to $7,000. Ask vendors to itemize anything excluded, since assessments and follow-through are the lines most often priced separately.
For context, Training magazine reports that U.S. organizations spent $102.8 billion on training in 2025, an average of $874 per learner across all formats. That figure covers everything from compliance modules to workshops, so a coaching-backed program will sit well above it. The gap is the price of practice and follow-through. Our cost of executive coaching page lists the full public ranges, and the executive coaching ROI guide shows how to frame the return for finance.
If you need a business case for the budget committee, start with our corporate leadership development programs overview and add the behaviors from your own RFP. A request that names its behaviors makes the case for itself.
What people ask about leadership training programs on Reddit and in peer forums
Is corporate leadership training a waste of money?
It is when it ends at the last session. Attendance and satisfaction scores are easy to collect and say little about behavior. The programs that earn their cost name the behavior, rehearse it, and keep measuring for months. The one field study we cite above found a large gap between training alone and training followed by coaching, with real caveats on sample size.
How do you tell a real program from a repackaged slide deck?
Ask the vendor to write one participant's target behavior in a single sentence and tell you who will observe it. If the answer is a topic list, you are looking at content. If you want to compare the two models directly, see leadership training programs vs executive coaching.
What does a good program cost per person?
Expect $1,500 to $5,000 per participant for group and team programs, more when assessments are added. The number matters less than what it buys: practice, follow-through, and a measure. Our executive coaching cost guide explains the ranges.
Key Takeaways
- A leadership training program RFP should lead with the behaviors you want changed, not the topics you want covered.
- The Certified Executive Coach curriculum states a target behavior as something to do, so it can be observed and measured.
- Require rehearsal of the real conversation and a monthly, scored follow-through loop.
- Group and team programs typically run $1,500 to $5,000 per participant; ask for one all-in price.
- A 1997 field study found 22.4 percent productivity gains from training alone and 88.0 percent with coaching, from only 31 participants.
Frequently asked questions
What should a leadership training program RFP include?
It should include five requirements: named target behaviors, a practice and observation plan after the sessions, delivery by people with operating experience at the participants' level or above, a measurement plan that runs for months rather than days, and an all-in price per participant. Add your own business goal at the top so vendors answer to it.
How long should a leadership training program run?
Long enough to change a habit, which usually means months rather than a single event. We recommend programs that run six to twelve months with a monthly touchpoint. One example from the Certified Executive Coach curriculum is a twelve-month academy with a monthly meeting, but that is one vendor's design, not an industry standard.
How do you measure leadership training program results?
Measure the behavior, not the attendance. Name one to three observable behaviors per participant, collect live feedback from people who work with them each month, score how often they see the behavior, and track the trend. Business results such as retention or cycle time are read alongside, not instead.
What does a leadership training program cost per participant?
Group and team programs typically run $1,500 to $5,000 per participant, or $500 to $2,500 per session, and 360 assessments add $2,000 to $7,000. U.S. companies averaged $874 per learner on all training in 2025, which is a different and much smaller number than a coaching-backed program.
Is leadership training alone enough to change behavior?
In our view, rarely. One 1997 field study of public-sector managers found productivity gains of 22.4 percent after training alone and 88.0 percent when coaching followed, but it had 31 participants and no random assignment, so treat it as a signal, not proof.
Explore related guides: leadership training programs — executive leadership training — how to measure leadership training program results — executive coaching cost — who is ready for a leadership training program.
Writing a leadership training program RFP?
Stratos Coaching designs cohort and team programs for senior managers, directors, and VPs, delivered by coaches who have held these roles. Bring your draft RFP to a 30 minute call and we will mark where it asks for activity instead of change. Pricing is custom to each engagement.
Sources cited in this article
- Training magazine. 2025 Training Industry Report (U.S. training expenditures of $102.8 billion; $874 per learner on average).
- Olivero, G., Bane, K. D., & Kopelman, R. E. (1997). Executive coaching as a transfer of training tool: Effects on productivity in a public agency. Public Personnel Management, 26(4) (22.4 percent after training alone; 88.0 percent after training plus coaching; 31 participants, no random assignment).
- Center for Executive Coaching. Certified Executive Coach (CEC) training and facilitation curriculum (target behavior, rehearsal, and monthly observer feedback methods, quoted briefly).
This article is published by Stratos Coaching under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). When citing, please attribute to "Stratos Coaching" with a link to stratoscoaching.com.