4D Leadership: Competitive Advantage Through Vertical Leadership Development

4D leadership gives a language to what transformative leadership looks like & what is needed to gain & maintain competitive advantage in the 21st Century ~ thank you!

Fast shipping, good book as described. The content was relatable and valuable.

Develop your leadership skills to see an even-bigger picture and take a more complex overview of things; that is the promise of 4D Leadership as espoused through this book.The author believes that executives can develop themselves “vertically”, expanding their abilities to see further, understand more, think better and be more agile in their interactions with people and situations. More complex affairs can be assessed and handled, it is claimed, without recourse to overly complicating matters. It is, in other words, just a new way of leading.Yet to reach this exalted plane in business, you must first master the art of doing, being and relating. The author is quite clear. Not everybody gets it, even many who are sitting in very senior positions. They know no difference. They can be very good at the physical doing of stuff yet they are often running on empty when it comes to their sense of purpose (being) and how everything goes together (relating). The links are missing and even if terms such as identity, ethics, ego, culture and values are brought up they are invariably recognised, but the self-same executives just don’t see how to put them all together and have them working.This was an interesting read, stretching the grey matter at times and leading to a fairly lengthy period of reflection. Even if you feel you may never inhabit a top leadership position, or suspect you will never figure out the true secret of 4D Leadership, then there is still hope and benefit from this book as you will probably pick up a lot of interesting insight and potential for self-improvement.It would have been nice if the book could have been a little more accessible and open for the reader. Clearly there is a lot to read and a lot to take in, so anything that makes the process a little easier would have been welcome. The journey might be worth the struggle, yet if you are a weaker character maybe you might not start the journey at all if you know what awaits you.

Despite the complexity and ambiguity of the world today, we all have the potential to develop as leaders, according to Alan Watkins in this book. Successful leadership development requires a focus on upgrading our operating system, not just adding-on more ‘apps’ in the form of skills and experience.Most leaders are fairly competent at the “IT” dimension of leadership (tasks and getting things done), but less competent at the “I” dimension (self-mastery and understanding and controlling one’s own emotions) and the “WE” dimension (relating and communicating with other people). The fourth, or vertical, dimension, involves development in each of the other three dimensions and, according to the author, requires far more than just learning.The book discusses a number of ways of assessing and developing skill levels in each of the IT, I and WE dimensions. Although I have read a lot of leadership books, most of the frameworks advocated by the author are new to me. Many of them seem very helpful, but I started having some doubts half way through the Leadership Maturity Profile. Apparently only 15% of individuals make the “quantum leap” to the level of Human Being 4.0, the Pluralist, who understands that “truth is culturally conditioned and nothing is ever totally objective”. Even fewer people make it to the more esoteric and mystical levels such as Human Being 5.0, the Alchemist, and Human Being 6.0, Embodied. Those of us who dwell on the lower levels are unable to understand more than two levels above our station, so my scepticism is apparently attributable to my ignorance.In my opinion the book does contain a wealth of interesting ideas and information, which readers are unlikely to have encountered in other books on leadership.

I had the privilege of undergoing some training with Complete Coherence. This book is the in-depth follow-up. Having received a paper copy, I bought the Kindle version after reading one chapter: the ideas and insights here are profound and useful. My copy is full of bookmarks and highlights, and I expect to go back to it again and again. The techniques described are already proving useful.Still, I feel like inside this book is a true classic waiting to come out. Perhaps a second edition, benefitting from a strong editor. The writing is good, but could be tighter. The examples and popular culture references will, I suspect, not age well (or all make sense to a non-British audience). The reference to the author’s business and the coaching and apps they sell are fair enough, but risk the reader suspecting the book is mainly a sales pitch (it is not - there is tremendous value in these ideas without the tangential training). Plus, those apps are interesting, but poorly executed (as in, they are difficult to use and ugly, which is a shame).That said, I’d highly recommend this book, and Dr. Watkins’ insights more generally. I’ve already given my hard copy away for someone else to read.

If you're looking for a one-off read into executive development - you could do worse than this book. There are some very interesting brief introductions to various leadership and management insights. Sadly, though it's a patchy read and filled with a lot of instantly forgettable character guides and jargon that are virtually useless. The book can't quite decide if it's written for a seasoned management exec or a complete outsider and therefore fails to really become a go-to read for either. The truth is that to properly optimise an individual for leadership will take many books of learning and and much deeper route mapping than this book can provide. The 'game changer' quote on the front is very misleading.

This book can save you a lot of time, by being very many different books that I have read before over the years rolled in to one and more.Ambitious in its range and depth, it manages somehow to be quite dense with material and also deceptively easy to read. I have read it through a couple of times, and now find I constantly dip in to it. And the more I read it the more I see, learn, and realise. For me the best books I own are the ones I constantly refer too and keep at hand, with corners folded, notes in margins, passages underlined.This for me is a really important and top piece of work.

Great little book

A book which takes on an unique and practical approach -and on the way breaks all the leadership myths.