Leadership is Evolving: Are You Growing Vertically?

Most leadership development today still operates on one plane: horizontally. Leaders acquire tools – time/focus management approaches, strategic models, communication hacks etc. - in hopes of improving their effectiveness. While useful, these tools alone can’t prepare leaders for the complexity, uncertainty, and systemic challenges shaping today’s world.

What’s needed is a deeper kind of growth - one that doesn’t just give leaders better tools, but helps them become fundamentally different thinkers. This is Vertical Leadership Development.

What is Vertical Development?

In simple terms, horizontal development builds your toolkit. It helps you do more. Vertical development, on the other hand, transforms the way you perceive and process reality. It helps you see more - broader, deeper, and with greater self-awareness.

You can think of horizontal development as downloading new apps to your smartphone. Vertical development is upgrading the operating system itself.

This distinction matters because leaders don’t just face new problems - they face new kinds of problems: cross-functional tensions, systemic risks, and cultural shifts. Solving these challenges doesn’t just require more knowledge; it demands a more expansive mind and thinking capacity.

You've grown before - here's how you can recognise it

Pause for a moment and think: if you look back five years, would you say you’ve changed?

Do challenges that once seemed overwhelming now feel easier to navigate?

Have you deepened your understanding of yourself and others?

Chances are, you would answer YES.

That is vertical development - the natural growth of how we make a meaning of the world for ourselves.

While it may feel smooth and continuous, researchers in adult development have observed something intriguing: this growth often follows recognisable patterns. Certain shifts - sometimes subtle, sometimes profound - tend to occur as leaders mature.

One of the most familiar examples is the midlife crisis - a period when questions of identity, purpose, and authenticity become urgent.

Each person experiences these inflection points differently, at their own pace and intensity. This journey is not always linear. It is not always comfortable. But it follows a certain logic: a shift in attention, a greater openness to complexity, a broader and deeper way of seeing and acting. 

Importantly, this kind of growth often happens invisibly. Outwardly, you may still hold the same role, make similar decisions, or express similar values - but inwardly, the depth and quality of your thinking and meaning making has fundamentally expanded.

Vertical leadership development isn’t about climbing higher. It’s about diving deeper into who you really are - and learning to lead from that depth.

From knowing more to knowing differently

One of the most powerful shifts in leadership development today is the move from focusing on what you know to how you know.

Imagine three leaders facing the same crisis. One sees a threat. Another sees a problem to solve. A third sees a system to understand and transform.

Same situation - different levels of meaning-making. That difference is vertical.

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How leaders grow vertically

Unlike horizontal growth, which is relatively linear and structured (training, certifications, etc.), vertical development is often non-linear. It emerges from meaningful experiences - especially those that are unfamiliar, complex, or even disorienting.
Here are five ways leaders can actively support their own vertical growth:

1. Seek experiences that challenge your identity

Growth begins where comfort ends - and often at the edges of how you see yourself.

Try this: take on a role or project where you are not the expert. Embrace the discomfort
of learning anew.

2. Ask deeper questions - then sit with them

Fast answers are the enemy of deep growth. Practice living with better questions instead.

Try this: each week, ask yourself:

• “What am I not seeing yet?”
• “What assumptions am I making?”
• “What lesson is hidden here?”

3. Observe your own thinking

It’s not enough to think - vertical growth requires noticing how you think.

Try this: after key decisions or conversations, self-reflect:

• Where was my view limited?
• Where was I open?
• What habits of mind showed up?

4. Create space to integrate experiences

Leaders often rush from event to event. Meaning-making requires pause.

Try this: after significant meetings or events, take 15 minutes to journal: "What shifted in how I see this situation?"

5. Surround yourself with different thinkers

Exposure to different worldviews accelerates internal expansion.

Try this: seek dialogue with someone whose background or approach is very different from your own. Listen not to agree, but to understand.

Coaching can accelerate the shift

Meaningful coaching doesn't merely help leaders fix problems. It helps them see - and then rethink - the patterns they live inside.
A coaching relationship offers a rare space where habitual assumptions can be surfaced, questioned, and expanded.
Coaching for vertical leadership development doesn't simply sharpen your skills. It helps you build the capacity to meet greater complexity with greater clarity, adaptability, and depth.

Final thought: you can't hack maturity

The journey of vertical leadership development isn’t a checklist or a quick win. It’s a fundamental shift in how you relate to yourself, others, and the world around you. In a world of rising complexity, the leaders who will thrive aren’t those with the most skills.

They are those with the most expanded minds.

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