Developing Future-Ready Leaders

Focus on vertical development

If 2020 taught us anything, it is that we need leaders who are more capable of navigating change, uncertainty, and complexity. 

Yet, back in 2015, Brandon Hall Group reported that 71% of organizations stated that their leaders are not ready to lead their organizations into the future. I wonder how this percentage might be different now.

Reflecting upon this statistics, do you think that organizations’ lack confidence in their leaders because: (a) they do not believe that their leaders have the knowledge, skills, and competence to lead, or (b) their leaders are not cognitively mature enough to navigate the change, uncertainty, and complexity they are facing (in other words, they are not “big enough for their britches”)? 
 
I don’t think there is a single answer to this question, but it brings up an interesting distinction in leadership development that is rarely considered.

Two Types of Leadership Development

There are two types of leadership development: horizontal development and vertical development. 

Horizontal development is about enhancing leaders’ knowledge, skills, and competencies; broadening their functionality; and allowing them to DO more. This form of development is similar to adding a new app onto an iPad. While this is generally helpful, this form of development is ultimately limited by the prevailing operating system. 

Vertical development is about elevating leaders’ thinking capacity to better navigate more complex and uncertain environments. The focus of such development is to help them to BE more. This form of development is similar to upgrading an iPad’s operating system. This doesn’t necessarily broaden the iPad’s functionality, but it allows the iPad to operate more effectively. 

With this basic understanding, do you have a sense of which form of development is most strongly emphasized in leadership development efforts? 

Nearly all HR professionals respond to this question with “horizontal development.” 

When we develop our leaders, we are primarily focusing on improving leaders’ knowledge, behaviors, and skills, which will only have limited value at meeting the organizations’ dynamic needs if vertical development is not also emphasized and provided. 

In other words, I believe that when we develop leaders for greater future-readiness, what we want is vertical development, but what we are doing is primarily horizontal development. 

How then, do we go about vertically developing our leaders?

Identifying the Key to Vertical Development

Here is another question for you about leadership development: Would you agree that most leadership development practices are rooted in philosophies that were created pre-2005? 

Nearly all HR professionals and leadership experts that I ask, answer this question with a confident, “yes,” which I agree with. 

This timeframe becomes significant when we recognize that it was in 2005 that neuroscience research began to exponentially increase. In fact, we have learned more about the mind in the last 15 years than all of the time before that. 

Thus, if most leadership development efforts are rooted pre-2005, they largely overlooked the mind, which is another reason why most leadership development programs focus on horizontal development. 

In order to help our leaders vertically develop, we must focus on the mind. And now we can, because we have the research-backing and understanding to do so. 

Levels of Vertical Development

Adult development researcher, Robert Kegan, has identified three possible levels of vertical development, which I will label as Mind 1.0, Mind 2.0, and Mind 3.0, which are described as follows. 
 

• Mind 1.0 – We operate largely in self-preservation mode. In this mode, we are inclined to attach to and identify with groups, recognizing that there is safety in numbers. We are on consistent lookout for threats to our or our groups’ image, ego, and identity. Because we are so preoccupied with potential threats, we are generally dependent thinkers that are good team players, faithful followers, and reliant on authority. When we do feel threatened, we react with fight-flight-freeze. Common feelings associated with Mind 1.0 include overwhelm, powerlessness, low-energy, envious, angry, defensive, and controlling. 

 

• Mind 2.0 – We operate in achiever mode. We are focused on our pleasure, gains, praise, popularity, power, and privilege. In this self-focused achiever mode, we operate more as independent thinkers that have a greater tendency for self-direction and being guided by an internal compass. We tend to focus on short-term selfish gains and have a hard time seeing a longer-term and/or more selfless perspective. Common feelings associated with Mind 2.0 include competitive, egotistic, tunnel vision, obsessive, rigid, impatient, anxious, argumentative, and judgmental.

 

• Mind 3.0 – We operate in contribution mode. We are in a place where we aren’t focused on ourselves, our protection, or our advancement. Instead, we are focused on how we can add value to others. In this mode, we operate as a wise sage, interdependent thinker that sees systems, patterns, and connections; focuses on the long-term outlook; and can hold multiple and even contradictory perspectives simultaneously. Common feelings with Mind 3.0 include centered, resilient, hopeful, compassionate, curious, present, content, agile, and creative. 

In his research, Kegan has found that 64% of the population primarily operates in Mind 1.0, 35% primarily operates in Mind 2.0, and only 1% primarily operates in Mind 3.0. 

Regardless of the mind level that we primarily operate from, the reality is that there are times where we operate at each of these levels. Thus, an important question becomes: what percentage of the time do we spend in each level?

Kegan suggests that most leaders and managers spend the largest proportion of their time in Mind 2.0. 

This means that if we want to vertically develop our leaders to become more future-ready, we need to help them make the shifts to operate more consistently in Mind 3.0.

How do we do that?

The Key to Vertical Development

When we operate in Mind 1.0 or Mind 2.0, we do so largely mindlessly and nonconsciously. Thus, the first step to vertically developing leaders is to help them become mindful and conscious of their primary mind level and the nonconscious automatic processing that goes with it. One of the best ways to do that is to help them awaken to their mindsets. 

In my review of the last 30 years of mindset academic research, I have found four sets of mindsets, each ranging on a continuum from positive to negative. When these sets of mindsets are put together, they create a framework for assessing the quality of our nonconscious automatic processing and current mind level.
 
These mindsets include the following:
 

• Fixed (focused on looking good; Mind 1.0 or Mind 2.0) – Growth (focused on learning and growing; Mind 3.0)
• Closed (focused on being right; Mind 1.0 or Mind 2.0) – Open (focused on finding truth and thinking optimally; Mind 3.0)
• Prevention (focused on avoiding problems; Mind 1.0 or Mind 2.0) – Promotion (focused on reaching goals; Mind 3.0)
• Inward (focused on getting ahead; Mind 1.0 or Mind 2.0) – Outward (focused on lifting others; Mind 3.0). 

You can take a mindset assessment to gauge where you stand along each of these continuums relative to over 15,000 people who have taken the assessment. 

Once leaders learn this mindset framework, and awaken to their current mindsets, they have the structure to think about how to go about shifting their mindsets to elevate their vertical development to operate more consistently in Mind 3.0. 

Elevating Your Leadership Development

As stated at the beginning of this article, we need more leaders that are willing and able to navigate change, uncertainty, and complexity. The only way that we can meet these leaders’ development needs is to focus on vertical development. 

If you can do a better job of elevating the minds of your leaders, which is best done through a focus on mindsets, you can create a competitive advantage for your organization. 

Author Bio

Ryan Gottfredson, Ph.D. is a cutting-edge mindset author, researcher, and consultant. He helps organizations vertically develop their leaders primarily through a focus on mindsets. Ryan is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author of Success Mindsets: The Key to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership (Morgan James Publishers). He is also a leadership professor at the College of Business and Economics at California State University-Fullerton.  Visit https://ryangottfredson.com/  Connect Ryan Gottfredson  Follow @RyanGottfredson