Leadership Development for Seasoned Professionals
At this stage of your career, leadership is not about proving yourself. It is about evolving how you lead, influence, and grow others. The most effective leaders today combine agility, emotional intelligence, and a focus on developing talent around them.
The following three pathways reflect the modern dimensions of executive growth, grounded in research from McKinsey & Company, Liz Wiseman, and Dr. David V. Day. Each topic includes practical ways to strengthen your leadership foundation and continue expanding your impact.
Career Compass
Your career direction should not be left to chance. The Career Compass helps you navigate your next stage with clarity and purpose by identifying where your skills, motivations, and impact align. Research from Gallup shows that professionals who understand and apply their strengths are significantly more engaged and fulfilled at work.
The My Next Stage IMPACT Survey builds on this principle, helping you uncover how you work best and what drives your success. You will gain insight into your professional strengths, communication style, and long-term vision. Then use the Career Compass Workbook to translate those insights into action. This simple yet powerful framework helps you define your top three growth priorities: Skill, Role, and Impact.
"Knowing where you get your energy and where you thrive is where you live your best professional life."
Discover what energizes you, clarify your direction, and align your next steps with your long-term goals.
Adaptive Leadership in Disruption
Lead with agility in times of change.
Today's most successful leaders thrive in uncertainty. Adaptive leadership is about staying flexible, learning fast, and empowering others to do the same.
Research from McKinsey & Company shows that effective leaders move from control to empowerment and from hierarchy to networks. They foster trust, experimentation, and collaboration across boundaries.
"The most effective leaders today build networks of teams and empower them to act with purpose, not permission."
Try this:
- Revisit how you make decisions: do you lead through control or connection?
- Encourage experimentation and small pilots before large-scale initiatives.
- Build cross-functional relationships to strengthen adaptability and innovation.
Consider this:
- Where do I rely on control when I could create connection?
- How can I design my team culture around learning instead of perfection?
- Which relationships could help me lead more collaboratively?
Strength-Based Leadership and Talent Leverage
Shift from managing work to multiplying potential.
Great leaders do more than direct people. They elevate them. Researcher Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, found that leaders who amplify the intelligence of others create teams that consistently outperform expectations.
This approach is about focusing on what people do best, building confidence through autonomy, and cultivating shared ownership for success.
"Multipliers see intelligence as something to be cultivated, not controlled."
Try this:
- Identify each team member's top strengths and shape roles around them.
- Ask open-ended coaching questions to inspire independent thinking.
- Publicly celebrate collective wins to reinforce a culture of shared success.
Consider this:
- Which strengths in my team are underutilized?
- How can I coach more and direct less?
- What structures can I create to recognize shared accomplishments?
Emotional Intelligence and Leader Self-Awareness
Leadership excellence begins with emotional mastery.
As careers advance, the defining traits of leadership become empathy, composure, and authenticity. Dr. David V. Day of Claremont McKenna College emphasizes that emotional intelligence is not optional for effective leadership. It underpins resilience, communication, and strategic clarity.
"Self-awareness is not a soft skill. It is the foundation of sustainable leadership."
Emotional intelligence allows seasoned leaders to stay grounded, communicate thoughtfully, and create psychological safety for their teams. It also helps manage energy and focus under pressure.
Try this:
- Reflect weekly on your emotional triggers and patterns.
- Seek feedback regularly on how your leadership style impacts others.
- Listen first, especially in moments of stress or disagreement.
Consider this:
- What situations challenge my emotional composure most?
- How do I ensure people feel heard when tensions are high?
- What habits help me maintain calm and clarity in pressure moments?
Your Next Stage of Leadership
These three dimensions (adaptability, strength-based leadership, and emotional intelligence) form the foundation of sustainable leadership growth. They shift your focus from authority to influence and from managing outcomes to developing others.
Before you can grow as a leader, you need to understand how you naturally lead. The free 10-minute My Next Stage IMPACT Survey helps you uncover your unique leadership style, communication strengths, and decision-making patterns. Grounded in research from organizational psychology and leadership development, this assessment gives you a clear picture of what drives your influence and how to build on it.
At My Next Stage, we help seasoned professionals expand their leadership capacity through research-based assessments, curated programs, and a supportive community of peers. The results highlight key areas for growth and connect you with leadership resources tailored to your personality and goals, helping you accelerate your development with focus and confidence.
Discover your leadership strengths, identify your next growth opportunities, and connect with resources designed for your stage of leadership.
Executive Presence Today
Redefine how you show up as a leader in the modern workplace. The Executive Presence Today guide helps seasoned professionals strengthen confidence, communication, and authenticity during career transitions. You will learn how to balance gravitas with empathy, clarity with curiosity, and authority with inclusion. Designed for leaders adapting to hybrid environments, this resource walks you through what executive presence looks like now and how to align your actions, tone, and mindset with today's expectations of influence and credibility.
What's inside:
- How to project confidence while leading with empathy
- How to communicate with authenticity across virtual and in-person settings
- How to build credibility through consistency and emotional awareness