What Does an Elevated Leader Look Like?
Elevated leaders are leaders who operate on a higher plane than most leaders. These leaders are positively transformational. In Good to Great, Jim Collins calls them “Level 5 Leaders.” In Multipliers, Liz Wiseman calls them just that: “Multipliers.” Often, the best leaders we can think of fall into this category. Historically, it is people Abraham […]
Solving the Riddle of Leadership Ineffectiveness: Focus on Expanding Leaders’ Window of Tolerance
I see an intriguing riddle with leadership. Let me give you two observations from my consulting and research: I have yet to meet a leader or boss who does not want to have a positive influence on the people they lead Past research points to the conclusion that the majority of leaders or bosses are […]
Vertical Development Example #4: Simon Sinek
Simon Sinek is a leadership guru that is almost a household name in the business world. This is largely because he has the third most viewed TED talk of all time and he is the author of five different business books (my favorite is The Infinite Game). What has allowed him to be so influential? […]
Trauma & Leadership – Part 3 – What are the Secondary Consequences of Trauma?
In this series, I am making a bold claim that I believe is key to transformationally elevating our leadership effectiveness. The claim is: Leadership ineffectiveness is rooted in leaders’ trauma If this is true, it has a very powerful implication: In order to help leaders significantly transform, we need to help them heal from their […]
The Value of Vertical Development to Leadership Development and Effectiveness
Vertical development is as essential to leadership effectiveness as Pliability is essential to peak athletic performance What does it take to be the best player that has ever played in one’s sport? It takes consistent top-level performance over a long period of time. Look at Tom Brady. No one would ever say that he is […]
Vertical Development Should Come Before Horizontal Development
Last year, I did a study of 153 organization’s leadership development efforts. One of the things that was revealed was the topics that organizations most commonly focus on in their leadership development programs. Here are the results: Communication & Interpersonal Skills – 72% of organizations Developing Management Skills (e.g., planning & decision-making) – 54% of […]
Gauging Your Vertical Development Altitude – Part 2
(If you are already familiar with my vertical development framework, skip down two sections) There are two different forms of development that we can focus on to develop ourselves: horizontal development and vertical development. Horizontal development is increasing our knowledge, skills, and competencies. This form of development is valuable because it allows us to DO […]
Gauging Your Vertical Development Altitude – Part 1
(If you are already familiar with my vertical development framework, skip down two sections) There are two different forms of development that we can focus on to develop ourselves: horizontal development and vertical development. Horizontal development is increasing our knowledge, skills, and competencies. This form of development is valuable because it allows us to DO […]
Vertical Development Mind Levels in Movies
Vertical development is an approach to developing a person that focuses on helping them see and make meaning of their world in more cognitively and emotionally sophisticated ways. Implicit in this approach is the fact that there are less and more sophisticated ways of seeing the world. I have categorized different levels of cognitive and […]
The Value Difference between Vertical and Horizontal Development
My experience is that nearly all people responsible for developing leaders in organizations are only aware of one form of development: horizontal development. Horizontal development is adding new knowledge, skills, and capabilities to a leader. It is similar to downloading a new app onto an iPad. It is designed to broaden leaders’ functionality, to help […]
