Speak Like a Leader Program

The landscape of leadership is evolving as newer generations challenge traditional hierarchies. Outdated practices, focused on a top-down power dynamic, have fostered an “us vs. them” mentality, stifling collaboration, slowing innovation, and hindering sustained growth.In response, Future Relevant Organizations are adopting "next practices" that recognize and celebrate contributions, influence, and impact of contributions at all levels of the organization. Central to this shift is the movement from “leading others” to “leading with others,” recognizing that leadership isn’t confined to those in senior positions.“Leading with others” encourages a more inclusive, collaborative approach by:

• Encouraging employees to lead and influence across boundaries.
• Inspiring shared purpose and accountability toward collective goals.
• Prioritizing well-being, fostering psychological safety, and enabling open idea-sharing.
• Viewing vulnerability as a strength, recognizing that no one has all the answers.
• Maintaining focus and thoughtful engagement amidst uncertainty.

A biopharma company with a historically top-down leadership structure offers a clear example of the transformative power of this shift. While the company had enjoyed impressive growth, it faced competitive and pricing pressures from disruptive innovation, regulatory challenges, and supply chain vulnerabilities, all of which called for a fresh approach to leadership. Innovation and expansion were crucial to sustaining success.Recognizing the need for change, the company embraced the idea that leadership and influence aren’t confined to those at the top. Here’s how this new approach reshaped their organization:

• Empowering all levels: Leadership became less about titles and more about fostering a culture where every employee felt valued and capable of contributing. Through well-crafted experiences, 5,000 employees enhanced their self-awareness, challenged established norms, and adopted a long-term perspective aimed at collective growth.
• Redefining leadership: Leadership shifted from micromanagement to empowering others to make meaningful contributions. Employees were given greater agency and ownership, leading to increased adaptability in a dynamic market.
• Building trust through vulnerability: The organization encouraged vulnerability, quickly building trust across teams in an evolving, loosely connected environment. This strengthened team dynamics and established a supportive community ready to face new challenges.

Next practices: Shared leadership responsibility

The shift toward “leading with others” is not simply a change in leadership style; it is a strategic imperative. By embracing diverse perspectives and treating leadership as a collective responsibility, organizations gain more valuable insights that drive better decision-making and innovation. Companies that adopt this approach are better prepared to adapt to change, seize new opportunities, and build a culture where everyone is engaged in shaping the future.

“Leading with”: A more inclusive path forward

Adopting a “leading with others” mindset requires more than just structural changes—it calls for a fundamental shift in how leadership is understood at all levels. Leaders must actively create environments where contributions from all employees are expected, not optional. This inclusive leadership approach fosters a deeper sense of ownership and accountability, empowering employees to align their actions with the organization’s long-term goals.As the business landscape continues to evolve, organizations that embrace this collective approach to leadership will be better positioned not only to navigate uncertainty but also to thrive in the future ensuring future relevance.

In challenging times, organizations need their leaders to step up and drive results.

When it comes to making that happen, just about every leader gets feedback that they have valuable strengths, as well as areas of opportunity where they could improve.

For most leaders, your strengths come rather easily. However, addressing your areas of opportunity is usually more of a challenge! Even worse, when your manager, peers, and others tell you that you need to change, you may feel hurt, upset, or anxious about it.

Here’s an example: Introverted leaders are often appreciated because they generally come across as thoughtful and deliberate when it comes to making decisions. At the same time, these leaders may get feedback that they often leave their teams and peers wanting more – that they need to speak up and share what they think and feel more often.

While many high-performing leaders understand this feedback, they may also struggle with it. Some worry that if they change their behavior in response to the feedback, they won’t be their authentic self. At the same time, these leaders may also be concerned that if they don’t change, then they will limit their success. We call this the “Authenticity Paradox.”

So what can you do when faced with this seemingly lose-lose choice? Quite often, leaders are advised to “fake it ‘til you make it.” Let’s say an introverted leader takes this advice to heart. They vow to start blurting out whatever thoughts come to mind—throwing caution to the wind by speaking first and thinking later.

There are a few significant problems with the “fake it ‘til you make it” approach. The first one is that no one wants to be fake! Secondly, you run the risk of negatively impacting one of your greatest strengths – your reputation for being more thoughtful and less impulsive. Thirdly, most people just can’t do it. They may try to change, but it feels so out of character that they will simply stop trying to behave differently.

The great news is that you don’t have to “fake it ‘til you make it.”  In fact, this approach is actually a very ill-advised path forward. Instead, the key is to figure out how you can respond to constructive criticism AND be true to your authentic self. To do so, think about how you can leverage your existing strengths to your advantage — maybe in a slightly different way than you do now.

For example, if you are an introvert, here are some ways you can be true to your authentic self AND be responsive to feedback calling for you to speak up and share more often:

• If you are a good listener who struggles to inspire others, go on a listening tour to learn more about what would inspire others.
• If you are humble person who doesn’t like the spotlight, tell more stories about peers and direct reports who deserve recognition. This may be a more comfortable way to inspire others and rally them around a vision.
• Rethink how you prepare for meetings and presentations in ways that honor your introvert’s preference for processing time. If you can anticipate and prepare for your audience’s tough questions on a given topic, you will show up much more ready to share and without feeling you have to “think out loud,” which may not feel natural for you.

The simple truth is that you don’t need to choose between being true to who you are and being successful in driving business results during turbulent times. Everything you need is within you: You don’t have to fake it ‘til you make it. You just need to be more thoughtful about how you can be responsive to feedback in ways that still feel authentic to you.

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For CEOs and business leaders today, their role extends beyond the typical challenges of ensuring profitability and executing the business strategy. They are also responsible for managing tensions between customers who want climate-conscious products and business operations, employee physical and mental health care, and the transition to a hybrid work environment. Furthermore, CEOs need to consider exponential rates of change in technology (including AI and robotics), digital currency disruptions, the impacts of globalization and geopolitics (such as shifts in power), as well as social media.

Today, leaders, organizations, and societies face ever accelerating rates of change and disruption. However, the individual and collective capacity to keep up with change is not growing at the same rate. The rate of change is greater than peoples’ capacity to learn and adapt along with it.

Research by Lectica[1] shows a significant gap between leadership capability and the complexity leaders face, referred to as the “complexity crisis.” The type of development needed to prepare for this reality is not just for senior leaders, and it’s not just about learning new knowledge, skills, and information.

This new approach is called vertical development. Many leaders are now becoming aware that this type of development is important. However, we have yet to see an organization that has unlocked the full power of vertical development interventions.

What is vertical development?

We define vertical development as the development of a leader’s worldview — deepening, expanding, broadening, and transforming their mindsets. This impacts leaders’ behavior and, therefore, results. Put simply, horizontal development is more about competency, and vertical development is more about capacity. Think about expanding development as if it were a glass of water. Adding water to a glass is horizontal expansion, but increasing the size of the glass is vertical expansion. Or, take cell phone operating systems: horizontal growth is about adding more apps; vertical development is about upgrading the operating system. Vertical development means that you can add apps with the ability to do more complex tasks than the previous operating system could handle.

Einstein is known to have said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." You can’t solve the problems leaders face today by adding new apps – you need to upgrade your operating system. Leaders today face more and more complex challenges. Adding new competencies, skills, and knowledge is not enough. Leaders’ development also needs to include the vertical dimension of growth so that they can see from a different perspective, find new and creative solutions, act with greater wisdom and capacity, and have a transformative impact within and beyond your organization. This is the type of learning that leaders need in order to meet the exponential rate of change.

In Harvard Business Review, Torbert (2005) found that five out of ten CEOs from various companies were measured at the Strategist level (an advanced level of vertical development), while the other five were measured at lower stages of vertical development. Of the five Strategists, all had successfully implemented organizational transformations in a period of four years, which improved the company’s profitability, market share, and reputation. For the other CEOs, only two succeeded in doing the same.

How do you facilitate vertical development in your organization?

Leaders cannot be forced to grow vertically. It is not the same as horizontal development, where knowledge sharing, training, skill development, or practicing a new behavior are enough. Growth occurs differently in vertical development.Vertical development is about expanding your mindset — changing how you think and behave. Mindset refers to the mental models you engage when you are thinking, as well as your sense of identity.

Vertical development isn’t about training a leader in skills. It’s about transforming the ways a leader thinks, which will impact what they do and how they behave. In vertical development, you become more adaptable, self-aware, and collaborative, with the ability to span boundaries and networks.[2]

‍We know from research at the Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL 2020) that three aspects facilitate vertical development growth:

1. Heat experiences – experiences where you face a complex situation that disrupts your habitual way of thinking.
2. Colliding perspectives – when you are exposed to others who have different worldviews, opinions, and backgrounds, your own mental model of the world is challenged through these experiences.
3. Elevated sense-making – as you reflect and make sense of the changes in worldview and experiences, you have the opportunity to enlarge your worldview.

By including all three of these aspects in your interventions, you will create prime conditions for vertical development.

Here is one example, which is designed in the context of executing a new business strategy through people:

1. Heat experiences: Leveraging business simulations, participants (dozens or thousands) form groups with other leaders to practice running a modeled version of their business environment. This allows them to align and live the new business strategy or transformation. Leaders are removed from their comfort zones and placed into complex situations, which enables them to grow. Sometimes leaders’ behaviors are observed to offer insights and additional challenges, which turns up the “heat.”

2. Colliding perspectives: Leaders meet others from different functions and levels to grapple with the simulated challenges in small groups to execute the new strategy. Here, leaders’ mental models are challenged through interactions with their peers. Each individual brings a different perspective or worldview and represents a different part of the business. Doing so reduces the polarity of views between groups, such as sales and operations, which can be a powerful tool in preparing leaders to execute a new strategy successfully. Without an intervention like this, these business siloes typically lead to stagnation or slow progress.
3. Elevated sense-making: Through mindset coaching, leaders get the opportunity to step back, make sense of things, and apply their learnings and shifts in worldview. Using a coaching approach that specifically focuses on mindsets or changing worldview is critical to enable this change as it provides critical support for individuals to make the necessary shift.It is also important to note here: not everyone will develop vertically. Some leaders will be a driving force for integrating a vertical change, but others may not be ready for such a shift. It is important to facilitate both vertical and horizontal development, and given the current climate, ensure vertical development is included.

Heat experiences, colliding perspectives, and elevated sense-making should be integrated into all of your interventions, enabling you to build the vertical development foundation your leaders need to have the greatest possible impact. When leaders’ worldviews are narrow, their range of choice and creativity is also narrow. As they expand, they will see more, experience more and be able to lead with more. When your leadership development interventions deliberately invite leaders to shift their perspectives and worldview, while also providing new knowledge, skills, and competencies, you empower and unleash your leaders to lead in our complex, globally interconnected world.