Why Hasn’t Vertical Development Been Widely Adopted?
If you hang around the leadership-development space long enough, you’ll eventually run into the idea of vertical development—the process of upgrading a leader’s internal operating system so they can think, feel, and relate at higher levels of complexity. This isn’t a new idea. For decades, developmental psychologists and leadership scholars have been mapping how adults […]
Leader: Your Calling Impacts Your Effectiveness
One of the most fundamental assumptions of leadership development work is that leaders operate at different levels of sophistication and effectiveness. Some operate a low levels, while others operate at high levels. If you are a leader, do you have clarity about what level you operate at? And, if you are someone who works with […]
How I Help: Leadership Development Programs
Of all of the things I do in my consulting practice, the thing that I do the most is support organizations’ leadership development programs. In fact, I do this in three different ways, ranging from lower involvement to higher involvement: Lowest involvement: I engage in a one-off keynote or workshop as part of a leadership […]
Why We Need to Consider Neuroscience in Leadership Development
The more I learn about personal and leadership development, the more convinced I become that the leadership development space is misstepping by not more fully considering neuroscience in leadership development. Let me give some rationale for this position, and then dive into some of the details: Leaders’ effectiveness is based on their ability to make […]
Current State of Leadership Development
This week, Raymond Lee (President at CareerMinds) sent me a recently-released article published by Josh Bersin on the current state of leadership development. There are three key findings from Bersin’s research that I think are valuable for you to understand: What HR Investments have the Biggest Return on Investment? Of a long list of HR […]
The Impact of Vertical Development on Individual Leaders
A few weeks ago, I surveyed my newsletter subscribers and asked them what they would like to see me write about. A common theme from the responses was that they wanted to learn more about my business and the impact that it is having on the leaders and organizations that I work with. So, over […]
The Difference Between Great and Bad Leaders is Smaller than I Thought
I want to share one of my biggest learnings that I have had over the last several months of doing deep vertical development work with a variety of executive teams. This work has involved doing 360’s and a coaching exercise that facilitates a deep introspective dive designed to help people uncover their subconscious fears, mental […]
Elevating Your Dynamism as a Leader: An Instrument Analogy
One of the biggest challenges facing leaders right now is that over the last several years, complexity and tumultuousness have skyrocketed, exceeding leaders’ development and their own complexity and ability to navigate the tumultuous environment they are facing. I call this “The Leadership Deficit.” And, every organization that I have worked with a struggling with […]
Assessing and Elevating the Sophistication of Your Leadership Team
In my experience of working with dozens of leadership teams, I have observed the following: Every leadership team operates at a different level of sophistication ranging from low to high Most (if not all) leadership teams believe that they are more sophisticated than they really are An organization’s growth and success are largely determined by […]
An Undervalued Key to Effective Leadership: Possessing a Willingness for Reinvention
Fill in the blank: I want to be a successful/effective/loving ____________________. I imagine that your ‘blank’ was filled with “leader,” “spouse,” “parent,” “manager,” “employee,” “teacher,” or something similar. I want to propose an idea to you: Your ability to become truly successful/effective/loving is contingent on your willingness to reinvent yourself. I am not talking about […]
