The future of Leadership is Postformal, the portal to higher adult development. Postformal is currently the most widely used psychological term to refer to higher order thinking. Yesterday’s Old Leadership evolved from industrial era thinking, supporting hierarchical, process-driven organisational structures. Its simple skills-based programs create externalised behavioural performance designed to be measured like machines. Postformal is the opposite of this. It uses higher order thinking, typical of more complex and higher functioning people. Developed initially by Lawrence Kolberg, Harvard Professor of Education & Psychology, Postformal thinking builds on the work of Swiss Developmental Psychologist Jean Piaget. Postformal Leadership itself is revolutionary, the first fully integrated approach to Leadership, although our research indicates that it has probably existed, unrecognised, throughout the ages. We believe that Postformal is the most natural way for people to think, develop and lead. The concept of integrated Postformal Leadership emerged from the Doctoral research of Earle de Blonville, and has been developed into a structure called the Postformal Leadership System. Today, Postformal Leadership is recognised through the development of naturally occurring human qualities. These include complexity, creativity, dialogical reasoning, imagination, intuition, paradox, reflexivity and higher purpose, to name but a few. These qualities emerge as we naturally evolve as human beings. Our integrated Postformal Leadership development program is called 9sails. It will change how advanced Leadership is practiced into the 21st century. 9sails was designed as a highly interactive and self-reflective five-day leadership development program for small groups working aboard a yacht. It is now being developed as an online program. Dr Jan D. Sinnott, Professor of Psychology, and one the great Postformal foundational scholars, says this: "Postformal thought is linked to creative production by virtue of multiple views of reality and its multiple solutions, definitions, parameters, and methods of problem solving. This reveals the essence of wisdom. And Leadership more than anything else requires wisdom."
