Considering Adult Development in Leadership Development

Leaders develop across a long horizon, potentially the entire lifespan. Continuing with the theme of time and development, this chapter examines the more distal outcomes of leader development that are associated with adult development. These distal outcomes are mainly related to mental complexity in which the leader’s “operating system” is enhanced in ways that allow for deeper connections to be understood among various external forces. The role of subject–object transitions is discussed in facilitating the development of mental complexity. Dynamic skill theory offers a theoretical perspective that includes issues of complexity but considers context to be much more central to forging developmental pathways. Another focus will be on the development of epistemic cognition involving the origin, limits, and justification of human knowledge. This type of reflective judgment process is ultimately about gaining a deeper understanding of the causal forces in the world and those that shape who we become and why. In this manner, there is an inherent connection between leader self-views and the adult development lens for understanding longer-term developmental outcomes. Enhancing the interior lives of leaders is proposed to help developing leaders better adapt to complex changes in the external environment by achieving equivalent levels of mental complexity.