Developing your leadership in a Complex World

This month we will be exploring how leaders can learn to flourish in today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) work environment.

Many consider that we are experiencing the fourth industrial revolution — the transformation of society, technology and consumer expectations, and we need to adapt and respond to these complex challenges in order to survive. This is demanding a different kind of leadership. Whilst traditional leadership involved being visionary and leading from the front, we now require leaders to be purposeful and inclusive.

As our environment is becoming increasingly complex, many leaders are feeling overwhelmed and have not got the capacity to cope. Many of us are feeling disappointed by our political leaders ability to take us forward.

The leaders who are effective in a VUCA world, are those who are able to think at an equal or superior level to the complexity of the environment, those “who can deal with constant ambiguity, notice the key patterns amongst the noise, and look at the world through multiple stakeholders.”[1]

So how can leaders develop in a VUCA world? There are two types of leadership development — horizontal and vertical. Horizontal development is about adding more knowledge and skills. However, during more complex times leaders need to develop their thinking capability and it is vertical leadership development that develops their ability to think in more complex, strategic, systemic and interdependent ways.

Developmental psychologists have identified that as we develop and grow, our thinking advances through predictable stages and that whilst children move rapidly through the stages, an adult’s pace of development slows dramatically, almost to the point of plateauing. Adults need to work at growing their thinking capability. David Rooke and William Torbert[2] built on this work and conducted research into the types of action logic that leaders show. They produced a range of vertical leadership levels which we can use to understand what kind of leader we are and what we are aspiring to become, as shown in the table below.

· % of research sample profiling at this level.

It is important to be realistic about our current leadership level and many tend to overestimate it. Next week we will explore how you can find out what your true level is and how leaders can increase their range.

[1] Petrie, N. (2014) ‘Vertical Leadership Development — Part I’, Center for Creative Leadership.

[2] Rooke, D. & Torbert, W. (2005) ‘Seven Transformations of Leadership’, Harvard Business Review.