Connecting to an earlier post on trends in leadership development, here is an update on vertical leadership development: Australian leadership author Nick Petrie has completed another chapter on vertical leadership. Different from horizontal development with its skills-based leadership development, vertical development should raise the view of the individual to a higher position and should give room for new solutions of old problems.

In a CCL whitepaper, Petrie underlines his earlier approach of three primary conditions, which he underpins with five tools each to be integrated in leadership development activities. The three building blocks are

1. Heat Experiences: Put yourself in a challenging situation, where your current way of sense making is inadequate
2. Colliding Perspectives: Get yourself exposed to people with diverse alternative viewpoints, challenge your mental model
3. Elevated Sensemaking (earlier: New Map Making): Build a new mindset with the support of a reflecting counterpart

The paper then lists 15 ideas and details how they can be used to increase vertical development with leaders – a valuable read!

Also very helpful is Petrie’s list of assessments for vertical development, which includes links to sentence completion tests (e.g. Cook-Greuter’s LMA, Torbert’s GLP, Rooke’s LDF, Holos’ LEAP), subject-object interviews, and other assessments (e.g. The Leadership Circle, Lectica’s Dynamic Skill Assessments).

Let’s only add Jennifer Garvey Berger’s latest book as another source: