StageSHIFT VERTICAL LEADERSHIP GROWTH

We liberate the latent potential of Senior Executive Leaders by guiding them on their evolutionary journeys to become Visionary Inspiring Purposeful - VIP - Leaders with a Transforming Synergist Mindset. They develop the capacity to reinvent the business, build a Team-based Empowering Accountable Learning culture to realize scalable Sustainable, Healthy, Equitable outcomes, and generate a Brighter Flourishing Future for all.

The Vertical Holistic Leadership Profile

The Vertical Holistic Leadership Profile (VHLP) is a Self-Assessment on a set of 156 vertically calibrated leadership capabilities and shadow elements that generates a unique automated 40p Executive Report. The VHLP includes Online Learning Resources on the Psychology, Structure and Nature of Vertical Leadership Development, and the opportunity to create your own unique 12-month Evolutionary Development Map with the guidance of a StageSHIFT VHLP Coach.

This approach to Vertical Assessment is a subjective assessment of oneself rather than the more objective assessment offered by Sentence Completion Exercises. However, it is significantly more valuable in raising self-awareness of the nature of leadership capabilities at progressive Stages of Development. It shows the way to customizing your leadership development in the year ahead by articulating your Aspirational Leadership Brand Declaration and monthly developmental focus.

Vertical Development doesn't start with stretch experiences or colliding perspectives. It begins with setting aspirational intentions that reflect the leader's deepest inner desires. ~ Antoinette Braks

Set up a Strategy Meeting with Dr Antoinette Braks

The Vertical Holistic Leadership Profile

The Capabilities range from the earlier Stages of Specialist, Achievist and Catalyst through to the later Stages of Synergist, Constructivist and Alchemist.

These capabilities and a series of shadow elements are interconnected with 5 themes for each of the 4 ways of being: Doing (AQ), Relating (EQ), Thinking (MQ) and Creating (SQ), at each of these 6 Stages of Development.

The Assessment results in a Report that offers an extensive explanation of the Stages of Development, your overall score for Leadership Presence, and your Top Seven Strengths, Stressors, Blind Spots and Stretches.

Our approach to the Discovery Debrief is significant. Rather than focusing on gap analysis from a 3rd Perspective, we dive into thematic resonance at mature 4th Perspective. This ensures that our meaning-making is uniquely customized to you.

Online Learning Resources

While the VHLP is a stand-alone Assessment accompanied by a deep Discovery Debrief, you can also opt for the VHLP Online Learning Resources if you'd like to gain a more expansive understanding of Vertical Holistic Leadership Development.

We offer videos and notes on:

The PSYCHOLOGY of Vertical Holistic Leadership Development.
The STRUCTURE of Vertical Holistic Leadership Development.
The NATURE of Vertical Holistic Leadership Development.

We share our expertise and experience in Vertical Development to the mature Stage of Synergist Leadership capacity associated with the Transforming Mind (Kegan; Torbert).

We've found that our approach goes beyond the purview of most Vertical Programs that enable leaders to navigate systemic complexity, uncertainty and volatility. We enable the development of an embodied Synergist Mindset to identify with and transform systemic complexity, uncertainty and volatility in collaboration with multiple stakeholders.

These Resources are ideal if you'd like to gain a deeper understanding of the research, architecture and pathway in Vertical Development to advanced Stages. If you are interested in this Program for your colleagues, please set up a meeting with me.

Set up a Strategy Meeting with Dr Antoinette Braks

Your Unique Aspirational Leadership Brand Declaration (ALBD)

Your ALBD is a powerful and meaningful way to create clear intentions for your vertical growth as an executive leader or coach. Your clarity of intention to reinvent your own unique identity creates the quality of attention to harvest the CROP - the Challenges, Resources, Opportunities and People that arise. Your ALBD acts as a powerful magnet to attract precisely those learning experiences and advantages to enable you to realize your heartfelt mindful aspirations.

About the StageSHIFT VHLP Coach Certification

WHO IS IT DESIGNED FOR?

This Certification is for Executive Coaches who wish to add a Capability-based Vertical Leadership Assessment to their Coaching Toolkit. You can then use this instrument directly with your clients and conduct your own Discovery Debriefs.

It's explicitly designed to raise clients' self-awareness and ignite the StageSHIFT to Synergist and beyond.

THE VHLP CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

This Certification offers:

3 VHLP Assessments for yourself and your clients
The VHLP Online Learning Resources
10 Live 90-min Discovery Dialogues pa in Vertical Holistic Leadership Development at 9am CET and 9am EST on Fridays every 4-weeks from February-June and August-December.

At each Discovery Dialogue, we review a VHLP Report and explore new inquiries and insights into Systemic Holistic Vertical Development. You're welcome to continue to attend our VHLP Discovery Dialogues as a member of the StageSHIFT Coach Community.

VHLP ASSESSMENT & CERTIFICATION FEES

You can either make a single payment to cover the ensuing 12-month period or an initial payment and the first month of 12 monthly payments.

After the first year, you can continue to participate in the live Discovery Dialogues, or upgrade to another Program e.g., The StageSHIFT Coach Certification, with a second installment and/or ongoing monthly payments.

We offer savings for Coaches who invest >80% of their coaching time in the Non-Profit Sector or in Developing Economies, and Scholarships for Coaches going through a transition. Email us to share your situation and wishes: [email protected]

_{The SAVING is the difference between making a Single Payment and 12 Monthly Payments.}_{The conversion to EURO is based on 0.85 to the USD (August 2025).}

StageSHIFT to Synergist

We StageSHIFT from Dependence to Independence at 3rd Perspective through the Stage of Specialist to land at Achievist. The next StageSHIFT is to Interdependence at 4th Perspective through the Stage of Catalyst to land at Synergist. At 5th Perspective we StageSHIFT through Constructivist to become newly grounded at Alchemist, a level of Interindependence.

StageSHIFTs to Master Role Complexity

Expanded Human Consciousness enables us to perceive, pierce through, and process increasing complexity to take collective steps forward in emergence. I recommend that the top 20% of Senior Executives hold an integrated embodied Synergist Perspective to lead scalable sustainable transformation in the chaotic world we find ourselves in today.

DEEP SYSTEMIC SPEED

Leadership Development to a mature Synergist Mindset 3 times faster than usual in just 1-2 years instead of 5-6.

SWIFT OUTCOMES

Double Leadership Effectiveness, People Engagement, and Creative Productivity in short time frames.

BUSINESS GROWTH

Uplift Performance, win Industry Awards, accolades for Presentations, and realize rapid Career Advances.

Bindra Navneet Singh, SVP / Country Chief

The Vertical Holistic Leadership Profile was the best, most useful piece of reading I have ever done.

I read it cover to cover three times. My results aside, I learned so much about what leadership really means. I found the 'Holistic' approach especially enriching. It goes well beyond the most evolved leadership concepts I have come across so far.

Annette Byrne, Director Leadership & Talent, National Bank

The Vertical Holistic Leadership Profile and Discovery Debrief greatly increased my awareness of myself as a leader. From the outset the questions posed in the VHLP made me reflect on a deeper level. Powerful insights for clear action emerged for me as a result.

StageSHIFT Coaching and the VHLP adds a different layer to leadership development that supports leaders and the organizations they lead to add greater value to their stakeholders, communities, and employees.

Jakob Holm Nielsen, People & Culture Business Partner, global organization

My Vertical Holistic Leadership Profile and Discovery Debrief was exactly what I needed. I had been seeking answers and tools in a variety of different places to pull myself forward to my next step. I was fascinated and inspired by the way it systemized and helped me to see the patterns very clearly.

It gave me a deeper explanation for a lot of the issues that I was facing, as well as concrete and practical actions to further my development. In short it was like being recognized for who I really am and thus every comforting word and clear action rang crystal clear in every part of my being.

Ekaterina Surkova, Transformative Executive Coach in Vertical Development

The VHLP (Vertical Holistic Leadership Profile) Certification provides a later generation Vertical Holistic Leadership Model and a multifaceted systemic view of vertical development. It teaches how to have a deep developmental conversation with a person who undertook the questionnaire.

The advantage of the VHLP questionnaire is that it highlights specific areas where the development is likely to bring about the major vertical shift.

Thomas Bjerkhede, Transformative Executive Coach in Vertical Development

I really appreciate the underlying model because it is so expansive and inclusive in its multiplicity of dimensions.

The introduction of the vertical dimension in a leadership profile became for me a bit like when I was a child and we got our first color television. Once I saw things in color, I couldn't return to looking at things in black and white.

I felt a little unsure before the meeting about how we could use the Report during our debrief. But it became apparent almost immediately that our meeting was going to be something far more beautiful, deeper and magical than I thought possible.

I don't know how it happens, but Antoinette really has an incredible talent for seeing patterns and being able to connect the dots in a way that is, for me, amazingly accurate. And it basically happens all the time during the meeting.

Very often these are things that I have been almost completely unaware of, or have denied to myself. But after it's been allowed to sink in, they've turned into absolutely invaluable gifts for myself in my development, as well as for those around me.

Executive Coach, Facilitator, Former CEO, and Big 4 Firm Partner

I recently completed the Stage Shift Vertical Holistic Leadership Development Program. The Program provides an excellent, up to date overview and synthesis of the entire Vertical Development field.

The highlights for me were the insights I gained from the Profile Debrief, the facilitated Discovery Dialogues and the summaries of all the major work in this field.