People Operate at Different Levels of Cognitive and Emotional Sophistication: Signs and Signals
In the non-fiction movie, Hidden Figures, we learn about the story of different black women who played a pivotal role at NASA in helping launch an astronaut into space. These women were mathematicians. As such, the movie highlights people working out complex mathematical problems. Being about solving complex mathematical problems, the movie features different tools […]
How to Get Leaders from Point A to Point B
To me, the first and most primary lesson of leadership is: To be an effective leader, we have to become someone others want to follow. Unfortunately, no leader or person is perfect. We all have room to become more of someone that others want to follow. Consider where you currently are or where the leaders […]
Blind Spots: The Obstacles to Our Vertical Development
I am hired by organizations to help their leaders and executives go from operating at one level to operating at a higher level. One of the biggest challenges that I face is that leaders or executives can see the value of operating at their current level and are quite ignorant about what it might look […]
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 […]
The Breadth and Depth of Vertical Development Efforts and Activities
Over the last two weeks, I have been asked one question at least three times. This question has followed my disclosure that I have been working with a therapist for two years as a part of my vertical development efforts. The question is, “How do you take someone from zero (almost a skepticism of therapy […]
The Four Practices Necessary for Vertical Development
What is Vertical Development? Vertical development is the process of upgrading our own internal operating system so that we operate in more cognitively and emotionally sophisticated ways. It is the process by which we become better. Vertical development is necessary for the improvement of the following characteristics, which I believe we should all aspire to: […]
Vertical Development: Elevating Our Complexity and Dynamism by Awakening to and Expanding our “Modes”
One of the first laws of vertical development for leaders is that as leaders become more vertically developed, they become more dynamic. In this article, I want to make this concept come to life. To do so, let me invite you to introspect for a moment: Over the last 24 hours, what modes have you […]
Do You Lead with Control or Do You Lead with Context?
On of the best leadership books that I have read is No Rules Rules by Reed Hoffman (Netflix CEO) and Erin Meyer. The book is about how Reed Hoffman has created a high-performance culture and organization (Note: the examples and figures in the post either come from or are inspired by No Rules Rules). In […]
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 […]
Leader: You Think You Are Right, But You Are Probably Not as Right as You Think
There was a study of crew coaches (the rowing sport you have probably seen in the Olympics) that confirms several fundamental premises of vertical development: A leader’s vertical altitude dictates what they focus on and prioritize What feels right at one vertical altitude will feel wrong when we operate at a different vertical altitude Specifically, […]
