Those of you who read our posts regularly know that we at SmarterWisdom are quite obsessed by several general approaches to leadership development. Themes and thoughts about self-awareness, intentional thinking and action, growth mindset and (Marcie’s favorite) letting the structure do the heavy lifting, are just a few that run through our writings, just as they percolate through our thinking. Many of these approaches that we care about help to form the framework of our work with the individuals and teams with whom we spend our time. Many of them even come together and align to create a structure that we can overtly share with people in an explicit form.

Recently, as my LinkedIn followers may have seen, I completed an online course at the Institute of Coaching on the topic of Vertical Leadership Development. The course focused on many aspects of adult growth with an emphasis on, among others, the work of Jane Loevinger, Susanne Cook-Greuter, and Terri O'Fallon. Jan Rybeck, the primary teacher of the course is an amazing curator and practitioner in this work. Nick Petri, another VLD expert, helps explain the concept: “Vertical leadership development is different from traditional leadership development. It takes the concept of ‘growth mindset’ and gives the leaders a map and a compass to go on a developmental journey.”

Having a map and a compass is not at all a bad thing; it can get you to places you want to go and it can lead you out of places you are ready to move on from. The goal of the class I recently took at IOC was to improve our work as coaches in our role as guides to clients who want to learn more about themselves. The key to any kind of growth is that the potential grower (growee?) needs to want to develop and is relatively self-aware; just having access to a map and compass won’t necessarily take them anywhere. Hence the key concept of this particular aspect of adult development, that is having a growth mindset. A central premise of adult development is how a mindset shifts or changes and can completely alter the way you might be acting in a situation that requires leadership of some kind. Vertical leadership experts say that mindset will always influence your effectiveness as a leader.

Taking a course like this, and doing the work that we do at SmarterWisdom, is bound to influence us. This particular work certainly made me think a lot about my stage of growth and how it helps or hinders my time with my coachees. In one example I heard during the classes, a coach described working with someone who feels like a helium balloon in her place of work—way above the level of thinking and working of the rest of her team—and how hard that was. There are times when I have felt like that; somehow not connected to the level of work going on in the team I am partnering with. My awareness of where I am, both from a development standpoint and in the context where I am working, always aids my ability to be and feel useful in that moment.

None of us is perfect, and the idea of adult development is surely more a concept of healthy, possible growth, rather than moving into another plain where no one can reach you. We all have shadows, blind spots and hidden possibilities, and we frequently look back to the past when we were not so “grown up.” A core focus is our deliberateness in this work. Robert Kegan, an influential thought leader in adult growth work, in his book (with co-author, Lisa Laskow Lahey) An Everyone Culture, talks about Deliberately Developmental Organizations. Places where the kind of growth I am referring to is deeply embedded in the culture of the workplace. Mentoring, having responsibility for each other, understanding the “why” of the work we all do, helps create a thriving and generative organization. “There are deep assumptions that run through all the DDOs: assumptions about the possibility and value of growing in adulthood, ways of structuring people’s growth directly in their work, ways of helping people get the most out of giving and receiving feedback and coaching, ways of making people development and business development all one thing.” (Kegan & Lahey)

Certainly we hire coaches to do this work with us—the coach’s ability to guide us through difficult terrain and be our map and our compass is incredibly valuable. How though, might we take what coaches do and embed it in our place of work. Instead of our colleagues spending much of their time worrying about what they are about to do or what they recently did, what if they spent their time asking key questions of each other and spending time learning and growing together, deliberately and intentionally. Can you in fact define your own worth within your organization and begin to place achievement and fulfilment side-by-side? Can you be part of a group where everyone is deliberately focused on this mutual work and help each other, by carving out space and time for real growth work each and every day?

So yes, there are structures and frameworks you can subscribe to and bring to your workplace. In the end though, it is about mindset. Mindset helps determine your outlook, behavior and mental attitude. It helps you rise above and outside the quotidian into a wide angle of being and seeing. Moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset will take you to places you have never imagined and develop your whole personhood.

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