In this interview, renowned constructive-developmentalist Susanne Cook-Greuter defines integral leadership and discusses the evolution of mature meaning-making systems and their relationship to leadership and a global society. She describes the shift from the personal, rational stages to the transpersonal, trans-rational stages, along with their particular characteristics, and the challenges of designing an assessment instrument capable of measuring development that transcends the constraints of symbolic representation. Susanne explains her unusual position on not overvaluing vertical development and articulates why horizontal development that is inclusive of early stages is mission critical to integral leadership. She discusses strategies for supporting and facilitating individual development, and explains why organizations and social systems are particularly resistant to change.

This piece is informed primarily from the perspective of the UL. It assumes familiarity with the integral model and with constructivist-development theory and its leading researcher-practitioners, and is therefore most suitable for an advanced audience. Topic areas include the “I” of Leadership and the “We” of Leadership.