Meet Alex.
Developing the leaders
who will shape Deloitte
Asia Pacific’s next chapter
A Programme Partnership Explained in Four Acts
Presented by
This story unfolds as you scroll down or click Next. Whenever you’re unsure, keep going.
Act One
Alex Today
Right. Where shall we begin?
Alex rose through a participating firm in Deloitte Asia Pacific as the person known for solving the hardest problems.
Through the developmental lens
Alex’s way of working has earned every step so far. The question this story explores: is it enough for bigger roles in a more complex world?
What I’m doing is working. So I’ll do more of it, and better.
Today Alex is the firm’s CEO.
Through the developmental lens
At the top, more people look to Alex for answers and fewer push back. The way of working that got Alex here is confirmed every day, which makes its limits harder to see.
A few years in, my firm is strong and everyone’s behind me. What’s next?
Alex sticks to a playbook established through experience: set bold goals and deliver them through a strong team.
Through the developmental lens
Alex’s success as a participating firm CEO comes from a strong internal compass for how a firm should run. Alex is subject to that compass. Alex looks through that compass rather than at it, so it feels like the way to run a firm, not one of several good ways.
Set the goal, rally the team, deliver. It works every time.
Alex keeps learning through executive education and leadership development programmes.
Through the developmental lens
This is horizontal development: new skills, frameworks and expertise that fill Alex’s existing capacity and help in the current role. But packing in more doesn’t change Alex’s level of development, or how much Alex can see.
Always good to see how the latest frameworks fit into my playbook.
Alex aspires to more: AP CEO, AP Chair or a global role.
Why not me?
As the world grows more complex, the gap between those roles and how Alex leads today keeps growing.
Through the developmental lens
In a more complex world, bigger roles ask for more than new skills and frameworks. They ask for what we call meta-capabilities, which means a greater ability to see what was hidden before, to recognise more choices and to act on the best one. Vertical development builds these meta-capabilities.
If I want one of these roles, why do I feel so disoriented when I think about them?
The self-transforming mind
A leader can see their own perspective as one of several, each partial, and holds many at once. That opens up more ways to handle any situation, and more room for creative action that leads to the best outcome.
The self-authoring mind
A leader steps back from those voices and makes decisions by their own inner compass, but cannot yet see the limits of their own perspective.
The socialised mind
A leader is guided by the expectations of the people and institutions around them, and feels torn when those voices disagree.
Alex has grown a great deal to reach this point. The way to a higher vantage point is not yet clear.
Through the developmental lens
Most leaders grow through three forms of mind. Each keeps the capacities of the one before and lets a leader see more.
So this is where I stand.
The self-transforming mind
The self-authoring mind
The socialised mind
Those roles call for Alex to see more than Alex can see today.
Through the developmental lens
When a role and its situation ask for more than a leader can yet see, they are “in over their head.” That is not a failing but the natural condition of a capable leader stepping into a bigger role in a more complex situation.
I’ve always had the answer. But nothing I carry shows me the way up from here.
Act Two
The Traps
The moves that carried Alex across every gap so far won’t let Alex cross the next one.Let’s imagine what that could look like for Alex…
Through the developmental lens
Alex’s success comes from a well-tested internal perspective for how a firm should run. Alex leads from the self-authoring form of mind, and in a bigger role the strengths of that perspective can become traps.
I’ll keep trying my playbook!
Example trap 1: Alex builds the most rigorous case and expects it to settle things, but the other firms’ CEOs don’t move.
Through the developmental lens
Alex is subject to the belief that the best-argued case should win. Peers who lead their own firms have different goals, and are not persuaded by being out-argued.
The numbers are clear. Why aren’t they moving?
Example trap 2: Alex takes on the most critical work personally, and the load keeps growing.
Through the developmental lens
Alex’s identity is tied to being the one who delivers. From inside that identity, showing uncertainty, asking for help or letting others shape the answer feels like a threat to Alex’s standing.
If I don’t do it myself, it won’t be done right.
Example trap 3: On AI and geopolitics, Alex waits for the right answer before moving, and it never comes.
Through the developmental lens
Alex treats ambiguity as a failure of planning. On AI and geopolitics, there may be no right answer to wait for, only the capacity to act, learn and adjust along the way.
I just need more data before we move.
Each trap grows from a strength that once served Alex well. The next role is in sight, but Alex can’t yet see a way to get there.
Through the developmental lens
The gap is not about effort or skill. Closing it takes growth into a new form of mind, which is what vertical development makes possible and what the programme is built to support.
I don’t know how to cross this on my own.
Act Three
The Programme
Alex is invited to join the other participating firm CEOs in a new programme, launched with AP leadership. An outside coach guides Alex and peers through it.
Through the developmental lens
Growing into a new form of mind takes a programme built around vertical development. The group starts together, on equal footing, knowing it aims at something different from the programmes they have done before.
Maybe I don’t have to cross it on my own.
Back at Alex’s firm, the coach takes Alex through the Leadership Circle Profile and interviews colleagues, who find Alex decisive, highly capable and hard to influence.
Through the developmental lens
Together they show how others experience Alex, in numbers and in their own words. The debrief starts with Alex’s strengths, which makes it easier to hear how rarely colleagues’ ideas shape the result.
I thought I knew how people saw me.
Alex and the coach talk through the business priorities ahead. With the Subject-Object Interview, the coach sees where Alex stands and where Alex’s stretch lies.
Through the developmental lens
The interview shows which form of mind Alex leads from today. The holding environment, the support and challenge that growth needs, starts here, with a coach who holds Alex to the work.
I’ve never had to explain how I make decisions. I just make them.
A few months in, the group gathers in person for several days. Much of the time goes into building the group itself.
Through the developmental lens
Peers add the second layer of the holding environment, one a coach alone cannot provide. In a confidential space, leaders used to having the answers can show what they are still working out.
I expected another executive programme, but this feels different.
Asked to share something unfinished, Alex hesitates. A peer goes first, nothing bad happens, and Alex goes next.
Through the developmental lens
These gifts of slightly greater vulnerability, given and received, strengthen the holding environment. They also lower the felt risk of stepping beyond what is comfortable, which is where vertical growth happens.
I’ve never said this in front of peers.
Alex sets a goal to bring peers into regional decisions early, maps what gets in the way and shares it with the group.
Through the developmental lens
The Immunity to Change map makes visible what Alex has been subject to. Alex wants peers’ input but is quietly committed to never appearing unfinished, one foot on the gas and one on the brake.
If I show an unfinished view, they’ll think less of me.
Backed by the coach and peers, Alex runs a small test at work, sharing a half-formed view on a live regional issue.
Through the developmental lens
Insight alone rarely loosens a big assumption. Small, safe experiments in real work poke holes in it, letting Alex take a foot off the brake and make progress towards Alex’s goal of bringing peers into regional decisions early. Room to experiment is the holding environment’s third layer.
I shared a half-formed view. They engaged more, not less.
After months of hard work, Alex reaches a higher vantage point and starts to see a bigger picture.
Through the developmental lens
This is vertical growth in practice. Seeing more, Alex begins to hold Alex’s own view as one of several, a first step towards the self-transforming form of mind, and a little closer to more confidently and capably stepping into a larger role in a more complex world.
Wow. From up here, I can see things I couldn’t see before.
In the group that has become their holding environment, guided by the coach, the CEOs compare notes and notice that each quietly protects their own firm’s interests in regional work.
Through the developmental lens
A pattern that shows up in every leader’s developmental journey belongs to the system, not to any one of them. The group takes it on as a shared challenge, to diagnose together and bring potential solutions to AP leadership.
So it’s not just me.
At the milestone, the group brings its shared challenge to AP leadership, lays it out, and everyone works on what the region needs next.
Through the developmental lens
Vertical growth in individuals enables breakthroughs at team and organisational levels. The group now works differently together, a breakthrough in itself, and what it uncovered is systemic, so AP can now act on it.
For once, I’m not presenting the answer. We’re finding it together.
Act Four
What Changes
About 18 months in, colleagues see real progress on the regional AI effort, and a leader who now brings them in early.
Through the developmental lens
Alex retakes the Subject-Object Interview against the baseline. Vertical growth takes years, so we look for meaningful movement rather than a leap, in how Alex makes sense of the world and how others experience Alex.
I’m still decisive. I just don’t decide alone.
Having grown into a wider view, Alex now sees a way across the gap, and the next role is within reach.
Through the developmental lens
The roles have not changed, but Alex has. Partway towards the self-transforming mind, Alex sees more of what the roles ask for, and the gap is one Alex can grow across rather than leap.
I didn’t have to leap after all.
Whether or not Alex steps into a regional or global role, Alex now leads differently at Alex’s own firm, sharing the critical work.
Through the developmental lens
Alex was subject to an identity built on being the one who delivers. Now Alex can look at it rather than through it, so sharing the load no longer feels like a threat.
It doesn’t all have to be me.
Alex is one of several participating firm CEOs now growing together and bringing others along, changing how Deloitte Asia Pacific grows its leaders.
Through the developmental lens
Leaders who see more start to build the conditions for others to grow, in how teams work, in shared routines and structures, and in the wider culture. Over time, AP becomes a more deliberately developmental organisation.
The End
For more detail about this programme partnership and vertical development, please refer to the Programme Overview memo.
For questions about anything covered in this story, please email:
- Bob Kegan (robert_kegan@mindsatwork.com)
- Traci Entel (traci.entel@incandescent.com)
- Chris Rudnicki (chris.rudnicki@incandescent.com)