Three Distinguishing Characteristics of Elevated Leaders (and a common factor hinders one’s ability to possess these characteristics)
An “Elevated Leader” is a leader that operates with a high degree of cognitive and emotional sophistication. They have developed themselves to the degree that they are in the highest adult development level (research has found that only 1% of people and 8% of leaders operate here). Most prototypical great leaders—leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Martin […]
Vertical Development & Life Fulfillment
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 […]
Want to Transform Yourself: Focus on Your Internal Operating System
Can you answer the following questions: Do people have an internal operating system (IOS)? Do you have a sense of what our internal operating system is? Do you think that the quality and sophistication of people’s internal operating systems differ? How can you tell? What are the signs that indicate this? In this article, I […]
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: […]
