Choose months of challenge with support over one-off events

Pick development that runs over months and combines real challenge with reflection, not a two-day event.

Pourquoi ça marche

Petrie argues that leadership programs often fail because they hit only one or two of the three conditions and run as events rather than processes. The few outcome studies fit the shape of that argument: in the largest, 10-month programs that deliberately added psychosocial challenge outperformed standard ones at triggering later-stage development. Stage change is slow, so short programs mostly add horizontal skill.

Comment faire

1. When choosing a program, coach or practice, ask how long it runs and what happens between sessions.
2. Check it against the three conditions: does it create real challenge, real contact with other views, and real time to make sense of both?
3. Prefer a structure of several months tied to your actual work over an intensive away from it.
4. Set your expectations in years, not weeks, and judge progress by how you handle hard situations rather than by a score.

Données probantes

Vincent, Ward and Denson (2015) studied 335 adults in Australian community leadership programs, mostly about 10 months long, measured with the Washington University Sentence Completion Test. Standard and enhanced programs both produced development within the conventional stages; enhanced programs, which added psychosocial challenges, were significantly more effective at triggering post-conventional development, especially for participants with a Sensing preference. Manners, Durkin and Nesdale (2004) found a significant rise in ego level in two intervention groups and none in a matched control. (observational)

Vincent and colleagues compared existing programs rather than randomly assigning individuals, and both studies are small relative to the claims often made for vertical development. Neither shows that a particular program reliably moves people a whole stage.

Sources

• Vincent, N., Ward, L., & Denson, L. (2015). Promoting post-conventional consciousness in leaders: Australian community leadership programs. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), 238–253.
• Manners, J., Durkin, K., & Nesdale, A. (2004). Promoting Advanced Ego Development Among Adults. Journal of Adult Development, 11(1), 19–27.
• Petrie, N. (2015). The How-To of Vertical Leadership Development–Part 2: 30 Experts, 3 Conditions, and 15 Approaches. Center for Creative Leadership white paper.

Erreur fréquente

Judging a program by how energized you feel at the end of it. The research that found change measured it months later, and the feeling of breakthrough at a workshop is not the same thing.