It’s not every day that you stumble upon a new idea in your industry. Something that challenges your ways of thinking and calls you into new and more expansive ways of practicing your work. That’s what happened to us at The People Side when we started learning about vertical leadership development. After months of reading and researching, we have come to believe that the concept of vertical development is crucial if we hope to unlock the full potential of people at work now and in the future. Let’s dive into this transformative topic and explore how it could reshape the future of leadership development within your organization.

Overview of Vertical Development Theory

Vertical development isn't about learning new skills—it's about evolving how people think and approach life itself. Instead of viewing vertical development as a prescriptive process, it's beneficial to see it as a concept that encompasses a collection of theories, models, and principles. Understanding the interconnectedness of these concepts can empower practitioners to facilitate more meaningful growth and development for today’s overwhelmed leader. At its core, vertical development is focused on deepening one's ways of thinking and understanding the world – it is focused on inner growth, which leads to profound personal and professional growth.

Imagine helping someone shift from being totally focused on solving problems to being someone who values and initiates change. That's the essence of vertical development. It is a shift in being, not just a shift in doing.

Vertical development means growing beyond a current mindset and worldview, and reconstructing the way people make sense of the world around them. When we experience a vertical shift, we begin to notice things we previously ignored, and we operate from an expanded perspective. In this way, it is different from horizontal development – which is the development of new skills and capabilities that help us function within our current construct. 

Let’s use the metaphor of a smartphone to demonstrate the difference. Adding apps to your phone is similar to horizontal development – or the development of new skills. By adding a new app, you can do new things on your phone. Vertical development is like upgrading your entire operating system, which optimizes the performance of the device overall. 

What does it mean to grow vertically?

At the heart of vertical development lies Constructive Developmental Theory (CDT), which integrates constructivism and developmentalism. Constructivism emphasizes that individuals create meaning through experiences, while developmentalism asserts that people evolve through different stages of increasing complexity over time. This growth isn't confined to our early years. Constructive-developmentalists believe that the systems people use to make meaning of the world grow and change over the course of time. As people transition from one developmental stage to the next, their ability to understand and interpret the world around them expands, which leads to an evolution in the way they make meaning of their experiences, which broadens their capacity for mental complexity. 

Over the years, researchers have identified that this type of development is not random – it is predictable and happens in a specific pattern. These predictable patterns are called “Mindset Stages.” Understanding the order of these stages helps us, as leadership development practitioners, to create the conditions that accelerate a leader’s growth into later stages of development.

The Vertical Development Map

Instead of viewing vertical development as a complex theory, think of it as a roadmap for leadership growth. By encouraging leaders to take small steps, embrace new experiences, and continuously learn and adapt, vertical development becomes more accessible and understandable.

One of our teammates, Claire Williams, uses the metaphor of a “map” to demonstrate how these different Stages work in her blog “The Diving Board” (which you should check out!). She explains “When we grow vertically, we are accessing more and more of who we really are, integrating the various parts of ourselves…and adding to the range of possible ways to think and be in the world.”  As our mindsets expand, we still have access to the territories we have already explored (earlier stages of development), but we have widened our range. Some adults never explore the fullness of themselves and exist only within the inner rings of their development. Which stage of development are you operating from now?

Stage descriptions are adapted from the work of Robert Kegan, Jennifer Garvey-Berger, Bill Torbert, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Nick Petrie, and Jan Rybeck

Benefits of Vertical Development

The practice of vertical development offers numerous benefits to leaders and organizations, including enhanced problem-solving, improved emotional intelligence, and more adaptive leadership. Leaders who undergo vertical development can more effectively navigate complexity, foster innovation, and drive organizational success.

Five Practical Steps for Practicing Vertical Development:

1. Assess Current Developmental Levels: Start by understanding where your leaders are on their developmental journey. This could involve self-assessments, feedback from peers, or working with development experts. There are assessments to support this work, including the Leadership Circle Profile and the Vertical Mindset Indicator (VMI).

2. Offer Reflective Practices: Encourage leaders to pause, reflect, and challenge their assumptions on a regular basis. This could be through journaling, coaching sessions, or peer discussions.  We like to use peer coaching circles and guided reflection techniques to empower this type of growth.

3. Provide Challenging “Heat” Experiences: Growth happens outside of the comfort zone. Offer leaders opportunities to tackle complex problems, lead larger and more diverse teams, or take on new responsibilities that require them to operate at higher levels of complexity.  This heat should come with support, so the leader is willing to step further into the fire, instead of shutting down and burning out.

4. Foster a Learning Culture: Create an environment where continuous learning is valued and encouraged. This could include providing structured after-action reviews, mentoring, or knowledge sharing solutions to the organization. 

5. Invest in Coaching: To support leaders who are growing vertically, it is critical to provide them with experienced coaches who are operating at higher stages of development. Coaches who are trained to use vertical development practices and assessments can guide them, challenge them, and provide valuable insights that could accelerate them into later stages. 

Conclusion: 

Vertical development is a powerful approach for unlocking human potential and fostering adaptive leadership in today's dynamic business landscape. By embracing the principles of vertical development and integrating them into your leadership development strategies, you can empower leaders to thrive at work, and realize ongoing success for your organization.

The People Side specializes in supporting both the horizontal and vertical development of leaders through the design and delivery of Development Journeys and Executive Coaching.  During these Development Journeys, we intentionally blend together solutions that challenge existing mindsets, encourage reflection, provide coaching, and promote broader awareness. If you are interested in learning more about our approach, let’s have a conversation!

And if you want to go deeper into this topic, to really understand both the theory and the practical application of vertical development in today’s world, we are excited to share more in upcoming articles. Please subscribe here to be notified when new ones are published. 

REFERENCES & ADDITIONAL READING

Kegan, Robert (1998),  In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Over-Our-Heads-Mental-Demands/dp/0674445880

Kegan, Robert & Lahey, Lisa Laskow (2009): Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organisation (Leadership for the Common Good)

https://www.amazon.com.au/Immunity-Change-Overcome-Potential-Organization/dp/1422117367

University of Wyoming: Learning Theories for Educators

https://www.uwyo.edu/aded5050/5050unit4/loevinger.asp

Wikipedia: Loevinger's Stages of Ego Development

Rooke, David & Kegan, Robert: Seven Transformations of Leadership - Harvard Business Review

https://hbr.org/2005/04/seven-transformations-of-leadership?autocomplete=true

Deep Psychology: Susanne Cook-Greuter & Her Insights Into The Ego

https://deep-psychology.com/cook-greuter

Cooke-Greuter, Susan (2005): Ego Development: Nine levels of increasing embrace.

https://integralartlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/9-levels-of-increasing-embrace-update-1-07.pdf

Davis, B., & Francis, K. (2023). “Constructive-Developmental Theory” in Discourses on Learning in Education.

https://learningdiscourses.com.

Jones, Hannah E.; Chesley, Julie A.; and Egan, Terri (2020) "Helping Leaders Grow Up: Vertical Leadership Development in Practice," The Journal of Values-Based Leadership: Vol. 13 : Iss. 1 , Article 8. 

http://dx.doi.org/10.22543/0733.131.1275

Cynthia D. McCauley, Wilfred H. Drath, Charles J. Palus, Patricia M.G. O'Connor, Becca A. Baker: The use of constructive-developmental theory to advance the understanding of leadership, The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 17, Issue 6, 2006, Pages 634-653, ISSN 1048-9843, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.10.006.

Petrie, Nick The How-To of Vertical Leadership Development - Part 2

American Psychological Association: Mindset Definition

Gray, Dave (2016): “Liminal Thinking: Create the change you want by changing the way you think.”

https://www.amazon.com.au/Liminal-Thinking-Create-Change-Changing/dp/1933820462

O’Hara, Maureen, and Leicester, Graham (2012) : Dancing at the Edge: Competence, Culture and Organization in the 21st Century

https://www.amazon.com.au/Dancing-Edge-Competence-Culture-Organization/dp/1908009985