Beena Sharma: The New Age of Leadership Development

Today, Commander Divine speaks with Beena Sharma, international consultant and president of the Vertical Development Academy. ?? Beena has worked for more than two decades in the area of whole-system, large-scale change. In this episode, Beena discusses polarity thinking, how language affects our reality, and the difference between horizontal and vertical development. Key Takeaways: We are entering the age of vertical development. Vertical development fosters essential growth of new perspectives and gives leaders a greater ability to handle the complex problems of our changing world. Fortunately, we can now measure how an individual grows through these stages of maturity thanks to assessments like the ones provided by the Vertical Development Academy. We need both horizontal and vertical development. While horizontal development gives you more knowledge, information, skills, credentials, and certificates, it doesn't fundamentally change any assumptions you have about yourself. It doesn't challenge any beliefs you have about how the world works. Vertical development, on the other hand, recognizes that you have certain beliefs, and that you’re invested in and identify with certain assumptions. And then these get challenged over time because of life experiences. How can a MAP assessment help? The MAP (Maturity Profile) assessment analyzes our developmental anatomy. It shows us how language reflects development, how we express our meaning-making, and what we see in the world through language. This then reveals what we are aware of, what we're not aware of, and the hidden beliefs and assumptions that we hold. By challenging those beliefs and assumptions, we can open up to new perspectives. Our new psychological development models mirror ancient spiritual traditions. Traditionally, the Eastern spiritual and wisdom traditions have talked about unitive consciousness. And now, we have a model that mirrors the stages of consciousness for psycho-emotional development, which is a fascinating and valuable paralle