Vertical and Horizontal Leadership Development
Improving your “skills” is much different from improving your emotional intelligence and cognitive awareness.
The summer of 1993 was one of the most difficult summers in my life. As a 10-year-old, my view of the world was constrained to my experiences and my environment. We didn’t have running water or electricity for most of the summer. We had to walk three miles just to get drinking water. We didn’t hear from my father in over a month as he was in a concentration camp. We didn’t know if he was alive or dead. I had so much anger built up towards the Bosnian Muslims who’d kept my father from my family. My world was unknowable and frightening. It felt like the world is a jungle and that only the strong survive and the weak oblige. I wanted to grow up and seek my revenge.
After I graduated from university in 2005, I spent most of July and August traveling through Bosnia, Serbia, and Montenegro. I’d gone back several times before, but this was the first time that I saw things through a different lens. I saw people that I grew up with struggling to make a living. Yet at the same time, I felt that the world is full of chances and opportunities. I was very proud that I had my own company and the freedom that came with that. I felt accomplished, but I was still thirsty for knowledge, prosperity, status and recognition. I still saw the situation in the former Yugoslavia as us versus them. I couldn’t forgive what Bosnian Muslims did to my family. I wanted to help my people in any way I could so I started hiring freelance developers and designers for my company from Bosnia and Serbia.
My world perspective changed dramatically, along with my many interests, when my son was born. It became apparent to me how fragile and complex the world is. During that time, in between my son’s naps, I read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. I found the chapter on the evolution of the role of religion in human life most interesting. The real shift in perspective was not in the details but in the perspective, the author was using to view humanity. I saw the world through a different lens. I felt that I had a much better understanding of how everything is connected and works together. I saw how people make choices from a larger context. I saw the world as a grid of mutually interdependent parts, which together form a holistic entity. I felt at peace with myself and others, especially the Bosnian Muslims who’ve I’d hated so much for what they did to my family. I realized how we’re all part of a much bigger complex problem and that we’re more alike than different.
My values, beliefs, and skills have evolved and changed several times when it comes to how I see the complex situation. My organizational coaching and training experience has taught me about the nature of leadership, as well as the development of leaders and their responses to challenges. Many leaders are unable to meet the demands of their roles due to the complex nature of the challenges they face. Many leaders are overwhelmed by the challenges and are hitting a mental and emotional glass ceiling, unable to effectively navigate today’s environment. The tasks they are charged with are literally more complex than their minds alone can handle. Executive mindset failure is one of the biggest reasons why organizations fail. Traditional mindset and practices of change leadership are no longer effective in an environment of multi-dimensional diversity marked by volatility, uncertainty, and complexity. It’s really hard to be agile and think differently when you’re fixated on the same old thinking patterns, mental models, biases, and assumptions.
It’s really hard to be agile and think differently when you’re fixated on the same old thinking patterns, mental models, biases, and assumptions.
In order to be a more effective leader in a world of increasing complexity, accelerating change, and near-constant uncertainty, leaders can succeed if they face gaps in their mindset and development. Leadership and learning have dramatically increased in importance, but the capability gap is widening. From my experience, many executives view leadership training and development as a “one and done” exercise. To make things worse, most leadership development is focused on adding new tools and competencies, what’s called “horizontal development.” However, “vertical development” of evolving or growing a mindset and beliefs is not given the same degree of importance. While the two are intertwined and each informs the other, they are very different. Horizontal development requires us to master skills, whereas vertical growth requires us to master ourselves. In other words, vertical development is about a leader’s mental capacity, while horizontal development is more about their competency.
Horizontal growth is familiar to most professionals. It encourages leaders to develop new skills to climb up the corporate ladder and become experts in their professions. Skills such as presentation skills, influencing, engaging people, coaching, storytelling, sensemaking, and so on are viewed as tools that a leader can draw on. Horizontal development and expansion happen via hands-on experience, training, reading, and self-directed programs. This development is necessary and fairly common. Nearly all traditional leadership development is based on horizontal learning.
Less common is a focus on vertical leadership development, which transforms how a leader thinks, feels, and makes sense of the world. It includes the development of both mental complexity and emotional intelligence. It’s about learning to change our worldviews, value systems, and beliefs. Transformations at these vertical levels are much more powerful and effective at developing transformational leaders able to navigate today’s highly complex, ambiguous, and rapidly changing business environment.
Read my other articles that are part of #WickedLeadership series:
