A fast-track to great leadership
In a recent conversation, a VC summed up the greatest challenge in a founder CEO’s journey from Seed to Series A perfectly, as ‘the transition from being “the hero operator” who can fix everything, to “the coach and visionary” whose role is to lead the organisation.’
A fundamental shift in mindset from reactionary to visionary leadership.
He went on to say that the three main challenges founders face are:
Ensuring there’s sufficient money in the bank through fundraising
Hiring, and keeping, the right people, and
Getting along with your co-founders.
Once a founder shifts into the ‘coach and visionary’ mindset, these types of challenges become easier to deal with.
What he described so well is the difference between building new competencies and transforming the way you think. We often think of learning and development as gaining new knowledge, skills, and competencies (also known as horizontal development).
However, new skills and competencies alone don’t make a person capable of leading larger and more complex businesses. Part of the process is changing how we think and see the world: a process called vertical development.
Vertical Leadership Development
The advancement in a person’s thinking capability. The outcome of vertical
stage development is the ability to think in more complex, systemic, strategic, and interdependent ways. It is about how you think… the real opportunity lies in looking at competencies through the horizontal AND vertical lenses at the same time. As leaders advance vertically, the way they think about and enact those competencies expands.
Nick Petrie, White paper - Vertical Leadership: Developing Leaders for a Complex World
The advancement in a person’s thinking capability. The outcome of vertical stage development is the ability to think in more complex, systemic, strategic, and interdependent ways. It is about how you think… the real opportunity lies in looking at competencies through the horizontal AND vertical lenses at the same time. As leaders advance vertically, the way they think about and enact those competencies expands. Nick Petrie, White paper - Vertical Leadership: Developing Leaders for a Complex World
Vertical leadership development is all about your mindset as a leader. The outcome of vertical development is the ability to think in more complex, systemic, strategic, and interdependent ways and unlock new capabilities that weren’t available to us before.
Fundamental leadership competencies improve as a by-product of vertical development.
A study* of 74 leaders (officers, directors, VPs, MDs, presidents) while they undertook vertical leadership development showed that these leaders made significant improvements in:
Inspiring commitment
Leading change
Managing performance
Cultivating and retaining talent
Catalysing teams
Creating a compelling vision
Personal grounding and resilience
Seeing the bigger picture.
Vertical development results in improvements to core leadership capabilities more efficiently than developing those competencies alone, illustrating that vertical leadership development should be a strategic priority for all leaders.
How does vertical development happen?
Developmental researchers have identified seven stages of vertical development. A leader transitions through one stage to develop the next. Each step builds on the last, growing in complexity, unlocking critical new capabilities and perspectives that weren’t previously available.
The seven stages are:
Opportunist – Deeply concerned with own needs. They try to win in any way possible.
Diplomat – Focuses on conforming with the rules and norms of the organisation or their peers.
Expert – Motivated to gain mastery and expertise. Values logic and respects other experts.
Achiever – Driven by goals, achievement, and meeting the standards they have set.
Redefining – Inspired by meaning and purpose. Challenges the status quo to find new ways.
Transforming – Generate organisational and personal transformations. See the system they’re in.
Alchemist – Leads with fluidity, seeing the interdependent nature of things. They integrate wisdom with a deep sense of global conscience.
However, vertical development is not a ladder to climb - it’s a continuum.
The best leaders have the most comprehensive range and ability to flex depending on what a situation requires of them.
Everyone will have an anchor point, a vertical development stage at which they are most comfortable. This leadership stage will shape a company’s culture and translate into a team’s environment.
Many businesses and business people operate at the Expert or Achiever stage. You may recognise the Achiever in the attitude that the solution is always to work harder - a company culture that will result in burnout and high turnover.
Great leaders confidently flex between a range of development stages. In a day’s work, they will engage different skills in different situations:
Nick Petrie, White paper - Lessons in Vertical Leadership Development
Why is this important for your business?
When you’re leading a growing business, you need to develop new skills and competencies quickly and on the job.
As its founder CEO, you create and influence your company’s culture, which will play an essential role in successfully scaling your business. The fastest way to increase your capability, develop these competencies, and stay ahead of your company’s growth is to focus on your mind - the way you think, and how you see your role.
Successfully leading an increasingly complex business means focusing on your vertical leadership development.
As your thinking matures, so will your company.
How do you develop vertically?
Research by the Centre for Creative Leadership has found three primary conditions support vertical leadership development:
Heat experiences
Seek new and intense challenges (like scaling a business!). There are many moments when you feel your feet are to the flames, through which you can grow.
Colliding perspectives
Build diverse, open networks of peers, mentors, and advisors.
Elevated sense-making
Understand what’s working and what needs to change through journalling and honest conversations with peers.
Group coaching as a mechanism for vertical development
All too often, Founder CEOs are so engrossed with putting out the latest fire that they don’t always prioritise the reflective thinking and conversations with their network that allow them to learn, grow and more easily deal with the next challenge.
Group coaching can be a real support mechanism for founder CEOs, especially the sense of connection, camaraderie, and accountability. Find out more about Aata’s group coaching programmes and how they facilitate your transition from founder to CEO.
References and further reading
* Harris and Kuhnert study, referenced in: The seven stages of vertical development:
https://www.nicholaspetrie.com/post/the-7-stages-of-vertical-development
Lessons in Vertical Leadership Development
https://www.nicholaspetrie.com/post/lessons-in-vertical-leadership-development
Developing Vertical Leadership
https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/developing-talent-youre-probably-missing-vertical-development/
Challenges first time managers must conquer
https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/first-time-managers-must-conquer-these-challenges/