Thesis (MBA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / Research shows that identifying and developing new leaders should be a leader’s primary focus due to the impact it has on the productivity, performance and sustainability of the organisation. The Young Lions Programme was a leadership development programme for high-potential supervisory staff implemented by a major South African financial institution’s retail banking division in the Western Cape region in 2006. The programme ran for three years until it was discontinued in 2008 due to the organisation implementing a national leadership development programme for all team leaders. Many of the organisation’s other regions still run development programmes for high-potential staff. However, the Western Cape region has not implemented another programme aimed specifically at high-potential staff since 2009. The effectiveness of the programme was never measured, nor was any research conducted to determine best practices for leadership development programmes. The aim of this research report is therefore to analyse the success of the programme through qualitative analysis by measuring the data gathered against the objectives originally set for the programme. Furthermore, this report aims to identify best practices in leadership development through the completion of a literature review and to make recommendations to the organisation for future leadership development programmes. The findings of this report are that the programme was successful in many aspects as demonstrated by the positive responses from the respondents to the questionnaire, and by the data analysed from the organisation’s database. Notwithstanding the success of the programme, responses from the questionnaire as well as the relevant research suggest that improvements can be made to the programme to increase its effectiveness in identifying, developing and retaining leaders in the organisation. These recommendations are summarised in the final chapter of this report.