✓ Increase engagement and improve retention
✓ Strengthen your leadership pipeline
✓ Create a common leadership language
Only half of what leaders know is ever translated into what they do.
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Forbes
(Leadership Development Benchmark Report, 2024)
Today’s organizations need a new approach to leadership development
The future of leadership growth is moving beyond developing horizontally to vertically
Horizontal Development: Expanding Your Tools for the Climb
Like getting better climbing gear—it equips you for the next challenge.
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Horizontal development focuses on developing knowledge, skills, and competencies—the tools leaders need to perform tasks, solve problems, and meet immediate demands. It’s about improving what you know and what you can do as a leader.
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✓ Develop Knowledge: Learn new concepts, processes, and information to expand expertise.
✓ Enhance Skills: Strengthen the ability to apply knowledge in real-world situations.
✓ Build Competencies: Improve technical and leadership capabilities to deliver results.
But here’s the challenge: No matter how many tools you add, they won’t help you navigate anxiety, uncertainty, pressure, and stress—the realities of modern leadership.
Vertical Development: Upgrading How You Climb
Like building endurance and perspective—it enables you to make meaning of tough situations and reach peaks others can’t.
Vertical development focuses on upgrading your internal operating system—helping you become mentally more mature so you can make sense of complex, uncertain, and high-pressure situations in a more cognitively and emotionally sophisticated way. It’s about transforming who you are and how you lead when the stakes are high.
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✓ Expand Cognitive Capacity: Elevate how you think, interpret challenges, and solve complex problems.
✓ Enhance Emotional Intelligence: Deepen self-awareness, adaptability, and relational capacity to lead authentically under pressure.
✓ Make Meaning in Adverse Situations: Shift perspective to become curious and find creative, constructive ways to overcome the most challenging situations.
With vertical development, leaders don’t just respond to challenges—they contribute, add value, and lift others.
Experience adaptable leadership training
We offer a flexible leadership approach that works at every level of your organization. We help leaders adapt to different situations and develop emotional intelligence so they succeed in challenging and complex environments.
Partnering with you for exceptional leadership
Leadership development shouldn’t be a patchwork effort. Our focus on vertical development results in adaptable, self-aware leaders who drive higher employee engagement, stronger performance, and lasting business growth.
3 steps to leadership strategy that works for you
Identify
Identify leadership gaps and strengths. Today’s challenges—like a younger workforce, digital transformation, and AI—call for a fresh mindset to lead tomorrow’s organizations.
Customize
Customize our vertical leadership development to make it your own. Empower your team with internal coaches and real-time feedback to build leadership that works for your organization.
Build
Build a self-correcting culture. Create a culture of continuous improvement where small, intentional actions lead to lasting growth and elevate everyone to their full potential
Make it your own
Co-branding
Deliver through your learning management system
Add your internal executive interviews and messages
Include your internal modules and company values
Realize the full potential of your leaders
Engage with 8020 Excellerate to:
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✓ Create a shared leadership language across your organization
✓ Develop cohorts with your leaders for accelerated productivity
✓ Strengthen adaptability in your leadership teams
✓ Help leaders develop greater depth and adaptability
✓ Increase employee retention and engagement
✓ Bring company values to life
✓ Develop a strong pipeline of future leaders
Leaders trust our approach
Received a promotion
Juan received a promotion soon after he graduated and continues to polish his leadership presence and regularly meets with an Excellerate Coach.
His next CFO Role
Steve was able to secure his next CFO role with the support of the 8020 Excellerate coaches and program. He is one of our biggest advocates and says he puts the program material to use every day.
Boosted her team's success
Had she not taken the program, Samantha says she wouldn't have been able to boost her team's success in the past year to the same extent.