Getting In Touch with the Quality and Altitude of Your BEING Side

We have two different sides to ourselves. Our DOING Side We have a DOING Side, which represents our level of talent, knowledge, skills, and abilities. This represents how many apps you have downloaded on your computer. The more specialized your apps, the better you will be at accomplishing specific tasks. Most people are quite “in […]

How Mind 3.0 Leaders Actualize Transformational Change

two businesspeople working on a computer in an office

There are three modern business leaders that I have studied that: Are great examples of being Mind 3.0 (i.e., highly vertically developed) leaders that… Have actualized transformational change in the organizations they led. These leaders are: Alan Mulally (Ford) – see American Icon Ed Catmull (Disney Animation) – see Creativity, Inc. Satya Nadella (Microsoft) – […]

Vertical Development & Life Fulfillment

feeling fulfilled at work

Do people at higher vertical development altitudes experience greater life fulfillment? That is a question that I partnered with Maurice Thibodeau to answer. Maurice is a the creator of a fantastic self-assessment called the Life Inventory Assessment, which is designed to help people gauge the degree to which they are fulfilled in their life across […]

How Past Trauma Affects Leadership Quality

woman with a psychologist for therapy, trauma and mental health support

We want better leaders and we want to become better leaders. Unfortunately, commonly referenced statistics suggest that the majority of leaders are falling significantly below expectations. Improving our leadership and that of others should be a priority. In this series I am going to make a bold claim that I believe is key to transformationally […]

A Measure of Your BEING Side: Your Relationship with Feedback

Novices vs Experts look for & listen to different forms of feedback

We have two sides to ourselves: Our DOING Side: Our knowledge, skills, talents and abilities Our BEING Side: Our character, mindsets, and psyche For most people and leaders: We are more advanced on our DOING Side than our BEING Side Almost all development efforts (across education, athletics, and organizational development) focus on the DOING Side […]

The Value and Importance of Vertical Development

a mature businessman smiling in an office with his colleagues in the background

What I am going to present in this article is perhaps the clearest way to articulate (1) what vertical development is and (2) the value and importance of vertical development. To lay the foundation for these two points, we need to recognize that people have two sides to themselves. Two Sides of Ourselves We all […]

How to Help a Lower-Functioning Leader Become a Higher-Functioning Leader

long-term plan

It’s a fact, some leaders operate at a higher level than other leaders. From my experience as a leadership scholar and consultant, I have found that we can evaluate leaders along following continuums to be able to distinguish the degree to which they are lower-functioning or higher-functioning: Lower-Functioning Leaders Higher-Functioning Leaders Possess a low degree […]

You Have a DOING Side AND a BEING Side

Satya Nadella

What do these people have in common: Bobby Knight, Michael Jackson, Lindsay Lohan, Shia LaBeouf,  Naomi Campbell, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Gordon Ramsay, and Tiger Woods? These are all people that are immensely talented, but have operated in a manner that reveals that they are perceived as having a flawed character. This similarity exposes an […]

Window of Tolerance

Business colleagues in a boardroom

In my leadership development programs, I commonly talk about a concept called “window of tolerance.” At first, I assumed that everyone was familiar with window of tolerance. But, I started asking my workshop participants if they have ever heard the concept. To my surprise, I am finding that among most audiences, only about 30% of […]

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