The previous article revealed how time pressures (Chronos), missed moments of readiness (Kairos), and closing windows trap organisations. But the most profound barrier often lies within the leaders themselves. We readily discuss the glass ceiling for pay, but there is another insidious barrier: the Developmental Glass Ceiling. We touched upon it in our third article, but this is fundamental to any transformation initiative.
This is the point where a leader’s current stage of psychological maturity and cognitive complexity becomes the limiting factor for their team and organisation’s ability to navigate organic choice points. When leaders hit their developmental glass ceiling, the trust-control paradox resurfaces, often with higher stakes.
What is outgrowing yourself?
My consultancy experience is replete with real examples of this painful, yet transformative, dynamic. I have also found some research to support these claims, although I’m not sure much is being done to look at it from this aspect as the sources are quite limited.
- Failure rates & complexity mismatch: Transformation initiatives fail at historically high rates, around 70% or more, often because leaders approach exponentially complex change with only linear thinking skills. This results in a mismatch between what’s needed and what leaders can deliver. I’ve mentioned in previous articles how using the Cynefin framework can help you map the complexity of your context and choose the most appropriate tools and methodologies.
- Vertical versus horizontal development: Horizontal development (skills, knowledge, tools) is plentiful, but vertical development, the growth of leaders’ complexity of thought, meaning‑making and mindset, is often overlooked. Skills to perform their role are necessary but not sufficient to navigate complex, disruptive change.
- Leadership maturity stages & adaptability: Research by Rooke & Torbert (cited in Change Management Review) shows that leaders who remain at early stages (e.g. self-centric or group-centric) are ill-equipped for transformational contexts. Only those at self‑determining, self‑actualizing, or construct‑aware stages reliably drive meaningful change. In other words, we need to continue growing to maintain our capacities to adapt, the greater the complexity we face, the greater our development needs.
- Culture & leadership doesn’t bridge readiness: Change leadership’s impact on employee readiness is often mediated by mature culture and mindset. Purely behavioural or positional leadership without deeper sense-making capabilities may not produce readiness. I have witnessed in autonomous teams how they responded to change even before the leadership was aware of it, the teams were willing, able and ready! If you wait for the weak signals to go all the way to the top (and they probably won’t) and come back down with a call for action, your window of opportunity [link to previous article] has probably closed.
I hope that by now I’ve been making the case for vertical development throughout this series, and that it’s now clear how indispensable it is for organisations to evolve and adapt to the inevitable internal and external changes.
Why Does The Developmental Glass Ceiling Appear?
Vertical development theory (Kegan, 1982; Torbert, 2004) explains that adults evolve through distinct stages of mind, each enabling a broader, more complex perspective. Leaders who successfully drive initial growth often operate from the ‘Achiever’ or ‘Expert’ mindset (Cook-Greuter). This excels in goal-driven environments within known paradigms. However, navigating the ambiguity, paradoxes, and systemic interdependencies inherent in organic choice points typically requires capacities associated with later stages like the ‘Catalyst’ or ‘Strategist’ (later ‘Construct-Aware’ or ‘Autonomous’ in Cook-Greuter terms). These stages embrace uncertainty, tolerate paradox, and focus on transforming systems and developing others.
The Squeeze and the Response: When a team, empowered by a leader’s initial trust (Article 3), evolves towards these later stages, they naturally begin to:
- Question underlying assumptions.
- See systemic interconnections the leader might miss.
- Seek more co-creation and fluidity.
- Challenge the leader’s own logic or limitations.
This creates evolutionary tension (Laloux, 2014). As you can expect, this is an uncomfortable position to be in, and often they pushed back, sliding back into their old ways to relieve the discomfort. The leader experiences this as threat, confusion, or loss of control.
The Leadership Choice Point
The leadership choice point then becomes:
- Clamp Down: Reasserting control, limiting autonomy, dismissing challenges. In other words, for whatever personal reason the leader doesn’t manage to overcome the challenge and crushes the initiative (often involuntarily) by limiting the growth. The teams become cynical as the gap between what they want and what the leader can offer grows. I have seen cases of sheer refusal to enter the realm of vertical development and instances when the leader went as far as they could, but it wasn’t enough for the circumstances.
- The Transformative Path: Embracing the discomfort as a signal for their own necessary growth. In other cases, there were beautiful stories of vulnerability, deep struggles and support leading to inner transformation.
Again, I feel we need to treat these two paths with empathy and compassion. We all have limits and varying potentials. The question is not about the person, but the match between the leader’s capacity and the organisational needs.
I once told an extremely intelligent and self-aware leader that he was the problem. He was a founder and an expert in his filed, just too disruptive for the operations. He acknowledged it, and we found a solution where he could use his full potential, yet let the organisation operate at its current level of maturity. In many other instances, the captain is the one sinking the ship.
The good news? This too is a choice point, one where leaders can choose growth over stagnation. Whatever decision is made at that choice point can only be influenced and the outcome belongs to the organisation. We have opportunity! We have possibilities! That is what energises me in my work! There can be deep frustration and despair watching the ship head for the iceberg, but at the same time, it’s not Fate in most cases. We have a possibility to avert the catastrophe or soften the blow.
Isn’t that exciting?
Breaking the Developmental Glass Ceiling
Shattering this ceiling requires:
- Leader Humility & Vulnerability: Acknowledging one’s own limits and developmental edges. This is something we all face (me included). Awareness is acquired through inner work, not power or rank.
- Commitment to Inner Work: Engaging in practices like coaching, reflective inquiry, shadow work (exploring the unconscious drivers of irritation or resistance), or peer councils to confront blind spots and develop greater cognitive agility. Vertical development isn’t a destination, it’s never ending.
- Systemic Support: Creating a culture where leader development is valued and supported, not seen as weakness. Organisations actively investing in vertical leader development see strategic pivots executed faster and with greater buy-in. In my example of autonomous teams, leadership was caught off guard when a decision was taken and implemented even before they knew there was a problem. It created a bit of leader unease, but as the trust had been built (trust goes both ways), they rolled with it.
The Consultant’s Role
My supervisor always says that we get the clients we deserve, and as a consultant, I feel constantly challenged by my customers and need to continue developing to support them as they grow. I don’t come from a place of expertise (knowing it all) but from a place of growth (knowing some of it and exploring the ambiguity of the rest). This stance is essential for supporting leaders at their glass ceiling, not as an expert with all answers, but as a fellow traveller and facilitator of their growth. We can only lead by example in vertical growth and acknowledge our own limitations with vulnerability.
Your Call to Action
Reflect: When have you felt ‘squeezed’ by your team’s evolution or a complex choice point? What did it reveal about your own growth edge (A “growth edge” is your current limit of cognitive and emotional capacity)? What’s one small step towards embracing that discomfort?
We’ve covered a lot of ground up till now. The final article of this series integrates all elements into a practice for mastering choice points.
If you want to dive deeper into the many aspects of leadership development, I have mapped the concepts and possibilities in my book: How Might We? A Fresh Look at Change Management and Transformation from a Neurodivergent Perspective.
If you’d like to ease yourself in, try my free email course or simply reach out.