What is Vertical Development?
Vertical development describes the progressive evolution of how adults construct meaning, perceive themselves, and understand the world across increasingly complex stages of consciousness. Unlike horizontal development—which adds new knowledge, skills, and competencies within an existing framework—vertical development transforms the framework itself. It represents not adding more apps to a device, but upgrading the operating system.
Vertical development is different than learning new information or skills; transformation changes the way a person knows things. In Robert Kegan’s subject-object theory, the mind becomes more complex with each stage as people become aware of perspectives they were once subject to but which, with development, become objects they can reflect on—making unconscious mindsets conscious and creating more choice.
This is fundamentally a stage-based model. Individuals move through different developmental stages over their lives, and as they transition from one stage to the next, the way they know the world broadens and leads to a qualitative evolution in meaning-making and mental complexity. Research indicates that 64% of adults never vertically develop beyond the first stage of adult development, and while children develop automatically as a function of age, adults do not develop automatically but as a function of effort.
Origins & Lineage
Vertical development emerged from constructive-developmental psychology in the late 20th century. The approach is rooted in developmental psychologist Jean Piaget’s work studying how children’s minds evolve to make sense of the world—though Piaget assumed such development ends in adulthood. Unlike Piaget, Robert Kegan showed that these shifts in complexity of mind continue over the course of a lifetime.
Jane Loevinger (1918–2008) conceptualized ego development theory based on Erik Erikson’s psychosocial model and Harry Stack Sullivan’s work, theorizing that the ego matures and evolves through stages across the lifespan through dynamic interaction between inner self and outer environment. Loevinger published her foundational text Ego Development: Conceptions and Theories in 1976 and developed a standardized sentence-completion test that became a major influence on the psychology of personality.
Robert Kegan’s work became the most influential framework in the field. Kegan’s constructive-developmental theory (1982, 1994) examines how humans grow and change over the course of their lives, concerned both with the construction of an individual’s understanding of reality and with the development of that construction to more complex levels over time. His books The Evolving Self (1982) and In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (1994) articulated his subject-object theory.
Susanne Cook-Greuter extended this lineage by refining measurement approaches. Cook-Greuter refined Loevinger’s sentence-completion test instrument and her definitions among stages of ego development, and explored the relationship between the highest stages and ego transcendence. Her 1999 dissertation Postautonomous Ego Development: A Study of Its Nature and Measurement mapped later developmental stages in greater detail. Other significant contributors include Lawrence Kohlberg (moral development, 1981-1984), William Torbert (action inquiry, 2004), and Terri O’Fallon (STAGES model, 2015).
How It’s Practiced
Vertical development cannot be achieved through traditional training alone. Unlike horizontal development, vertical development cannot be achieved through traditional training alone but requires immersive, experience-based, and reflective learning approaches.
Core methods include:
Assessment and Measurement: Most approaches to measuring vertical development are sentence completion tests, and two are interviews. Jane Loevinger’s WUSCT (Washington University Sentence Completion Test) scoring manual can be purchased online and used as a self-training tool, and remains one of the most validated measures of vertical development. Other instruments include the Global Leadership Profile (Torbert), Kegan’s Subject-Object Interview, the Leadership Circle Profile, and the Shifting Horizons Assessment.
Coaching and Reflection: Experiential leadership development programs provide new perspectives, time and space to dialogue and reflect, and opportunities to receive feedback; professional or structured peer coaching/mentoring supports this work. Vertical development requires deep reflection and sense-making.
Challenging Experiences: Development can be accelerated or hindered by the individual’s life experiences. Like Piaget, Kegan considered vertical development the result of a ‘construction process’ where human beings interact with their environment, are challenged by it, forced to make meaning in ever newer, more complex ways and, as a result, grow ‘vertically’.
Structured Inquiry: Using tools like an ‘Immunity Map’ helps uncover competing objectives and hidden assumptions when old behaviors don’t change. 360-degree feedback and personality assessments reveal blind spots and increase awareness of different perspectives.
Vertical Development Today
Vertical development has migrated from academic psychology into leadership development, coaching, and organizational consulting. An estimated 90-95% of all leadership development efforts focus on horizontal development, but awareness of vertical approaches is growing.
Seekers encounter vertical development through:
- Corporate leadership programs offered by consultancies specializing in constructive-developmental approaches
- Coaching certifications that integrate vertical development frameworks, including ICF-accredited programs
- Assessment experiences using sentence-completion tests or structured interviews to determine current developmental stage
- Reading and study of foundational texts by Kegan, Cook-Greuter, Torbert, and contemporary interpreters like Jennifer Garvey Berger
- Retreats and intensive programs combining reflection, somatic practice, peer dialogue, and developmental feedback
The Vertical Development Institute, Leadership Circle, and similar organizations offer training for practitioners. University programs in adult development and transformative learning increasingly incorporate these frameworks.
Common Misconceptions
Later stages are not automatically “better.” A damaging assumption is that late stages are automatically ‘better’ and that people operating from those mature planes of development are automatically wiser than the average person. Stage does not equal wisdom, compassion, or effectiveness in all contexts.
There is no recipe or formula. It is falsely assumed that some sort of recipe exists for fostering vertical development and that experts holding that ‘recipe’ can just come into an organization, apply the ‘magic formula’ and ‘transform’ people.
Development does not happen in isolation. The third false assumption is that vertical development happens in isolation—that it’s solely a function of the individual who can keep on growing regardless of the context/system they are embedded in.
It is not a personality type. Vertical development describes structures of consciousness that evolve over time, not fixed traits or preferences. Environments can elicit the same person to see through the lens of a different stage depending on the environment.
It does not replace horizontal development. Both are necessary. Horizontal development enables people to become more skillful at things they already do; vertical development enhances capacity to employ those skills and express personality.
How to Begin
Start with foundational reading. Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey’s Immunity to Change (2009) offers an accessible entry point with practical tools. Kegan’s In Over Our Heads (1994) provides deeper theoretical grounding. Jennifer Garvey Berger’s work translates developmental theory for coaching and leadership contexts.
Engage reflective practice. Encourage pausing, reflecting, and challenging assumptions on a regular basis through journaling, coaching sessions, or peer discussions. Developmental movement requires making the subject object—bringing unconscious patterns into conscious awareness.
Seek assessment. Understanding where you are on the developmental journey could involve self-assessments, feedback from peers, or working with development experts; assessments include the Leadership Circle Profile and the Vertical Mindset Indicator.
Find a developmental coach. Work with practitioners trained in constructive-developmental approaches who can facilitate growth-focused conversations and provide perspective on your meaning-making structure.
Embrace challenge and discomfort. Vertical development occurs through grappling with complexity that exceeds current capacity, not through comfort or reinforcement of existing views.