CEOs who max out their ‘full potential’ still struggle to effectively navigate the complexity of business and life until they boost their 'full potential' to the next level
Why It Matters: We aren’t effective as we need to be under pressure when we reach our full capacity.
The Big Picture: Growing unpredictability and complexity challenge our capacity to lead effectively. We all have moments in which we're way over our heads.
Backstory
As a fighter pilot leader, I was involved in air combats with too many threats, jets, and uncontrolled instances that were beyond my ability to see the big picture.
As a CFO, I had days when I felt like the analysts, media, and investment banks conspired to overwhelm me.
As a COO, I had moments that felt like the whole supply chain didn’t make sense.
As a CEO, some board meetings felt like a political battlefield, and the senior leadership team felt like a group of insurrectionists planning a coup.
Not every day. Some days. And those days weren’t the greatest for my loved ones when coming home.
I was on top of my game in these situations. It’s just that my game wasn’t enough. I maxed out my ‘full potential.’
I wasn’t aware of that then, and I had no idea I could boost my ‘full potential,’ what the next level was, and how I could transform.
It’s Not Your Personality
People spend so many years in one level of potential that they start believing it’s their personality.
Everybody else believes so, too because they associate behaviors with personality.
They are wrong.
When we expand our potential, our personality changes.
Scientists have identified seven levels of potential. When you read through them:
Assign a “personality avatar” to each level of potential
Think about a person that fits the description of each potential - assign a name to each level. Make it personal.
Identify what level you're operating under pressure. Be true to yourself.
The seven levels of potential
Self-Centric
Manipulative
Blames others
Opportunist
Disobeys power
Rejects feedback
Ignores the rules
Believes in luck
Selfish
Bully
‘Eye for eye’ norm
Short term horizon
Wins at all cost
Group Centric
Avoids conflict
Pleases others
Conservative
Passive
Pick their battles
Follows norms
Obeys to rules blindly
Suppress their needs
Fits into culture
Loyal to the group
Care about appearance and status
Apply group standards
Follows authority
Values acceptance, belonging and being liked
Domain Centric
The 'know it all' expert
Follows best practice
Problem solver
Perfectionist
Critical of others (especially if disagree)
Tends to micro-manage
Likes problem-solving
Data-driven (“Let me share my screen. I have numbers.”)
Needs to be right
Prioritizes efficiency
Accepts feedback only from recognized experts
Opinionated
Wants to stand out and be recognized as indispensable
Values knowledge
Vision Centric
Results-oriented
Collaborative
Values effectiveness over efficiency
Self-aware of limiting behaviors
Interested in building strong relationships
Concerns about own integrity – wants to walk the talk
Long-term goals and outcomes
Prioritizes well
Facilitates strong teamwork
Courageously Authentic
Inspired by the future
Drives vision
Strong sense of justice and ethics
Evolving emotional intelligence
Open to feedback
By now, we have covered almost everybody you know in your professional and personal life. Vision Centric potential is what every leader aspires to become and everybody else wants to hire, work with or manage. 99% of leadership books help people reach Vision Centric potential.
Vision Centric was good enough until recent years when complexity and unpredictability amounted to levels we have never experienced.
And that’s just the beginning. In the coming years, AI will change not only the way we do business but also the way we lead. In the disruptive chaos that will follow the adaptation of AI technology, Vision Centric, the most admired and highly rewarded potential, won’t be enough.
The leaders of the future are the ones who will transform themselves beyond Vision Centric to the following levels:
Expansive Transformer
High awareness of context
Growing awareness of their assumptions and beliefs
Always inquiring
Seeking feedback
Collaborate with deep connection and care
Highly tolerant of differences
Can challenge the group norms
Thinks out of the norms (and what is seen as ‘normal’)
Balances independence and interdependence
Attracted by differences
A force for change
Connects past and future
Maverick
Highly creative at many levels
Integral Transformer
Systemic thinker
Highly effective in managing paradoxes and polarities
Self-actualized and fulfilled
Aware of their shadows
Able to sense elephants in the room and address them
Expansive sense of identity and self-worth
Multi-dimensional time horizons
Highly reflective in real-time
Welcomes unpredictability and uncertainty
Manages well volatile situations
Comfortable with ambiguity
Strong sense of individuality
Adapts quickly to the complexity and evolving situations
Connects the dots of the wider ecosystems
Balance processes and outcomes
High consciousness
Unitive Transformer
Metaphorical
Sees dark, light, and many shades of grey
Good with order and mess
See oneness in each of us and all of us
Shifts paradigms
Embraces common humanity
Internalize observations
Being in the action and observing the action from the outside
See social shifts and creates movements to manifest them
Identify Your Potential
Studies show that 85% of the leaders operate from the earlier four potentials and only 15% from the later three augmented potentials (in which only 0.1% are Unitive Transformers).
At what level did you evaluate yourself? Be true to yourself. If you want to know the truth, share this post with people you have deep rapport and ask them what they think your potential is (including your partner).
I had a very humbling experience a few years ago when I thought of myself as an Integral Transformer. I took the potential assessment and found I was at the Vision Centric with some signs of an Expansive Transformer.
Cognitively, I fully understood the Integral Transformer. Subconsciously, I was not yet there. It took two more years and a potential development coach to catapult my growth to Integral Transformer.
Before we go
Every potential includes the previous levels of potential
We leverage all our early levels of potential
We can't leverage the level of potential we haven't reached
We sometimes intentionally operate from an earlier potential (For example, Group Centric when we go to a party with people we don't know or Domain Centric when we give a speech)
We sometimes fall back unintentionally to earlier potentials (and feel bad about it)
In future posts, we will talk more about each level of potential and how to transform from one level to the next.
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