Traditional Swiss Paper Cutting (Scherenschnitte)

Paper cutting has been around in many forms in Switzerland since the 17th century – from devotional religious images to silhouettes popular among the elite. Johann Jakob Hauswirth (1809-1871) is considered the father of traditional Swiss paper cutting. It relies symmetrical design by folding paper and contrast. Traditional papercuts  typically depicts scenes of the Swiss countryside.

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For me, it is in this art form that I started to acquire a different way of "seeing" -- a relationship between form and formlessness and understood the nature of differentiation, foregrounds and background. These became foundations for the Construct-aware stage (of the Leadership Maturity Framework). There are as many pictures i a piece of paper as you can imagine. Similar to sculpting, you just have to cut away what doesn’t belong. 

Maturity Assessment Profile (MAP)

The MAP is the current sentence completion test that measures a person’s ego development maturity. It was formerly referred to as the Leadership Development Profile (LDP) and the Integral Sentence Completion Test (SCTi). 

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The MAP and its analysis have evolved since 1980 out of Loevinger's Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT). In 1985, I first presented my ego development theory at a conference. It expands the original WUSCT beyond Loevinger’s integrated stage. It introduced 2 new stages and capacity for perspective taking as a structural grounding. I also used my linguistic knowledge to refine the distinctions that the evolving ego can make.

Based on research of over 4500 SCTs, I completed an extensive validation of the expanded SCT in a 1999 Harvard dissertation.

Lifelong Human Development. Here depicted in a 1996 papercut of the phases of a women’s life

My dissertation on Ego development was originally published by UMI dissertation Services (publication #9933122) in 1999, then republished by Pro Quest in 2010. There, the term ‘MAP" appeared for the first time. The evolution of the MAP ad framework started in the early 1980s after I learned to score the WUSCT and encountered interesting responses and patterns in the data that could not be explained by Loevinger’s theory. The Leadership Maturity Framework (LMF)   parallels Ego Development Theory (EDT). It is adjusted for corporate contexts.

EDT is a theory of how self-identity forms and expands. It is based on and amplifies Jane Loevinger’s EDT (1970). It addresses the whole person from three main dimensions: Thinking, Being and Doing. It shows how meaning making can also evolve in adults beyond the familiar growth of children’s minds. The LMF is based on research that documents the human potential for life-long transformation.

Leadership Maturity Coaching (LMC)

Leadership Maturity Coaching (LMC), was co-developed with Beena Sharma. It is a developmentally-orieniented form of coaching. LMC can be tailored to individuals, executive and business coaching.

As human beings, we all face challenges throughout life. From a developmental perspective, what changes are not the basic challenges that human beings encounter, but the relationship to these challenges that a person can hold. The LMC approach is built on the Leadership Maturity Framework and philosophical principles. It defines eight distinct developmental stages and transformations. Trained and certified practitioners can use these to guide individuals and leaders on their paths towards deeper self-knowledge, greater maturity and integration and more choiceful effectiveness in supporting others.