Integral Leadership: Growing Up
Becoming a psychological adult.
Over the last several weeks we have been exploring Integral Leadership and the emergence of the deep Self in service to the system. Last week we got into the first essential pillar: Waking Up and experience of spiritual wisdom.
But Waking Up is only part of the whole picture…
A common misconception that people have is that spiritual awakening is the apex of human development. That once we have woken up, there is nothing left to do.
I couldn’t disagree more.
As Dustin DiPerna reminds us in his book The Coming Waves,
You and I are simply sacred instruments Divinity uses to play the symphony of life. As such, it matters how finely tuned we are as instruments.
All of this means that no matter how awake you are, your individual development and psychological health make a difference. Everything you are, and everything you do, either enhances or dampens the potential of Reality to express itself through you, as you, for the benefit of the whole.
If you want to do anything with your spiritual awakening, you need to level up your maturity game.
Which is where Growing Up comes in.
You can think of it like this… If learning new information is like putting things into a container, then Growing Up is making the container bigger and more refined.
The bigger your container, the more Life you can let in..
Growing Up and the Path of Vertical Development
Vertical development refers to a concept in psychology and adult development theory that focuses on the qualitative growth of individuals beyond acquiring new skills or knowledge.
Unlike horizontal development, which involves acquiring more information or refining existing abilities, vertical development concerns the deepening and transformation of a person's way of thinking, feeling, and understanding the world.
Putting new information in the container is horizontal development. Making the container bigger is vertical development.
In vertical development, individuals progress through stages of increasing complexity and sophistication in their cognitive, emotional, and social capacities. These stages are characterized by shifts in how individuals perceive themselves, others, and the world around them, as well as how they make meaning of their experiences.
Vertical development suggests that as individuals move through these stages, they become more capable of handling complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty. It also implies a greater capacity for empathy, perspective-taking, and adaptive leadership.
Overall, vertical development offers a framework for understanding personal growth and transformation that goes beyond simply accumulating knowledge or skills, emphasizing the evolution of one's internal capacities and ways of relating to the world.
If you’re keen to explore this idea a bit more, I invite you to check out some of the following videos:
Vertical Development with Beena Sharma
Stages of Leadership Maturity with Beena Sharma
Vertical Development: The Most Important Leadership Idea You Need
States vs. Stages
It’s important to note the difference between states of consciousness and stages of consciousness development.
The nuance of this is beyond the scope of this blog, but I want you to know that states of consciousness are like the states that we move through the day: waking state, sleeping state, dreaming state, meditative state. In Waking Up, we experience states of oneness, unity and interconnectedness.
In contrast, stages are like steps in an unfolding process. You don’t move in and out of them like you do states. You develop progressively through them. As you develop into later stages, you transcend previous stages, but the qualities of those stages are still within you.
You can think of it like a set of nesting dolls. As you Grow Up and move into later stages (the bigger dolls), the smaller dolls are still inside of you, therefore you still have access to the qualities inherent in that stage.
Up Next: Stages of Adult Development
Robert Kegan is a renowned developmental psychologist known for his theory of adult development. His work focuses on understanding how adults grow and evolve over the course of their lives, both cognitively and emotionally.
Next week we are going to explore this theory in a bit more depth so you can begin to understand the various maps of Growing Up.
Growing Up is one of my favorite places to nerd out, so expect to spend a few weeks here while we explore different models and theories of development to help us understand ourselves in a totally new way.
Until then, may this work benefit all beings everywhere.
Soulful blessings,
Emily
As you might be aware, I am huge development nerd and I firmly believe it’s an integral part to becoming an authentic, fulfilled, effective leader. If you find yourself longing to explore this with a coach, feel free to schedule a consultation with me to get started.
