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.
Why it works
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.
How to do it
- When choosing a program, coach or practice, ask how long it runs and what happens between sessions.
- Check it against the three conditions: does it create real challenge, real contact with other views, and real time to make sense of both?
- Prefer a structure of several months tied to your actual work over an intensive away from it.
- Set your expectations in years, not weeks, and judge progress by how you handle hard situations rather than by a score.
Evidence
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.
Common mistake
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.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Vertical Development Practices: How Adults Grow, Not Just Add Skills
- Seek a heat experience on purpose
Take on a first-time challenge where results matter and your current way of thinking is not enough.
- Put yourself where perspectives collide
Spend real time with people whose worldviews, training and stakes differ from yours, and listen past their content to their values.
- Make sense of it with a guide, not alone
Set aside regular reflection time with a coach or mentor who understands developmental stages, so a disruption turns into a new way of seeing.
- Map what keeps you from changing
Take one change you genuinely want, find the hidden commitment working against it, and test the assumption underneath.
- Audit your goals: skill gap or sense-making gap?
Sort your development goals into what more knowledge would fix and what a different way of seeing would fix.
- Work at your edge with support, then without it
Notice that you can think at a more complex level with help than alone, and use that gap as the place to grow.
- Use a developmental assessment for insight, never for ranking
If you take a stage assessment, choose a rigorous one, debrief it with a trained practitioner, and keep it away from decisions about people’s worth.
Related concepts
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
- Self-Authorship: Moving From the Socialized to the Self-Authored Mind
Kegan’s stages, subject-object moves, and authoring your own life
- Adaptive Leadership, Made Practical
Distinguishing adaptive challenges from technical problems — and leading accordingly
- Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES Model, Made Practical
Twelve stages built from three repeating questions, and how to work with the one you are in
- Zone of Proximal Development: Learning at Your Real Edge
Targeting the gap between what you can do alone and what you can do with guidance
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