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Start building your big picture mind & support the global emergence of Integral consciousness
“Integral Life is the most important and globally-relevant platform for the leading edge of Integral consciousness evolution”
– Eugene P.
Susanne Cook-Greuter and Beena Sharma offer a stunning overview of the Leadership Maturity Framework, which offers leaders, coaches, and change agents of all stripes a far more thorough understanding of human development and human potential, as well as a far more robust toolset to help others thrive at whatever stage of life they find themselves at.
For anyone looking for an approach to growth and development that emphasizes intellectual rigor, ethical stance, and everlasting wisdom, you will not want to miss this incredible presentation by two of our most beloved integral pioneers.
What Is Vertical Development?
When we talk about human development, we distinguish between lateral/horizontal and vertical development. Horizontal growth and expansion happens through many channels, such as schooling, training, self-directed and lifelong learning as well as simply through exposure to life. Vertical development in adults is much rarer. It refers to how we learn to see the world through new eyes, how we change our interpretations of experience and how we transform our views of reality. It describes increases in what we are aware of, or what we can pay attention to, and therefore what we can influence and integrate. In general, transformations of human consciousness or changes in our view of reality are more powerful than any amount of horizontal growth and learning.
The Leadership Maturity Framework is based on Jane Loevinger’s ego development theory and incorporates more recent research by Dr. Susanne Cook-Greuter. It describes nine ways of adult meaning-making, and shows how adults mature throughout the lifespan, making meaning in evermore meaningful and flexible ways.
One’s stage of development significantly affects how individuals understand their role and function in the workplace, how they interact with others, and how they deal with adversity and complex issues. Indeed it predicts what one defines as a problem to be solved or simply as an unavoidable polarity to be managed. Studies show that the stage of meaning making is often more powerful in explaining individual differences in behavior than personality traits and intelligence combined. We consider each stage to be a constellation of developmental tasks that individuals need to master on their journey towards maturity. The stages are idealizations – no one masters all aspects of the stage before moving on to the next stage. Each meaning making system, world view, or stage is more comprehensive, more differentiated and more effective in dealing with the complexities of life than its predecessors.
From Dr. Cook-Greuter and The Center for Leadership Maturity
Additional Resources
For more information about the MAP instrument, please visit Dr. Cook-Greuter’s website or VeDA. At the time this article was published in 2018, VeDA was known as the Center for Leadership Maturity, LLC. VeDA was later legally registered under its current name on September 8, 2023.
Beena added the Polarity Management framework to the Leadership Maturity Framework, calling it Polarity Wisdom. Thus, we now use it as an additional criterion in analyzing MAP and in coaching.
Here are graphics of the maturity framework for your reference and use, shared by Dr. Cook-Greuter and Center for Leadership Maturity.
About Susanne Cook-Greuter
Dr. Susanne Cook-Greuter is a world-renowned expert in mature adult development and self-actualization who expanded on Loevinger's work to create the Ego Development Theory (EDT), also known as the Leadership Maturity Framework (LMF). Over her 45-year career, she specialized in the Integral Sentence Completion Test (SCTi-MAP), training and certifying scorers since the early 1980s. Prompted by Bill Torbert at Boston College, she began applying this assessment tool to coaching, eventually co-developing global training programs in the 2000s to bring developmental perspectives into corporations. Though now retired, her foundational research powers many modern leadership services, and her list of certified associates can be found at www.cook-greuter.com.
About Beena Sharma
Beena Sharma is President of the Vertical Development Academy, and an international consultant committed to serving leaders and organizations in their growth endeavors. . Beena is a Certified MAP Scorer, Certified Leadership Maturity Coach and certifying Master Coach. Beena is a lead facilitator of the VeDA Coach Certification Program and consults with organizations interested in implementing vertical development. Beena is trained in Polarity Thinking at the Mastery level and integrates that expertise in her coaching and consulting practice.