Leadership assessment
Maturity Assessment Profile (MAP)
The most robustly researched measure of vertical development in leaders. It shows how each leader makes sense of their world, what’s next in their growth, and how far a leadership team has come.
- 36sentence beginnings, completed in your own words
- 1966the year rigorous testing began, with validation across many cultures since
- 450,000+sentence completions behind the scoring manuals
- 13,000+MAPs in the Vertical Development Academy database
What is the MAP?
The Maturity Assessment Profile is a leadership assessment that measures vertical development: the stage of maturity from which a person makes sense of themselves, other people, and their work.
It combines the Washington University Sentence Completion Test with Dr. Susanne Cook-Greuter’s research at Harvard, built on four decades of research into stage theory. That research shows that, as adults, the way we make meaning keeps evolving through a predictable series of stages. Think about what mattered to you in elementary school compared with now. We keep growing like that as adults, too.
The result is one of the most tailored and specific leadership assessments available today. It is also one of the most personal, so we treat it with care.
“It’s probably the most powerful mirror somebody can have held up to them.”
Two kinds of growth
Horizontal and vertical development
Most leadership development is horizontal: new skills, more knowledge, more experience. It matters, but it doesn’t change how a leader sees. Vertical development grows new perspectives and a greater ability to handle hard, ambiguous problems. In today’s complex work, leaders need both.
The framework
Eight stages of leadership maturity
Research over four decades traces vertical development as a sequence of eight stages. Each one is generally more effective, flexible, and insightful than the one before. Leaders become less defensive and more open to what is true about themselves, including their fears. Like a winding road up a mountain, the path isn’t linear, and the view keeps widening.
Earlier on the path
The view is limited. We see what is right in front of us and solve the problems we already know how to solve.
Further along
We can see farther. More perspectives come into view, including ones that used to feel like threats.
Later still
There is more than our own mountain. Other ranges appear, and earlier views make sense in a new way.
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For each leader
How the assessment works
Complete the sentences
Each leader finishes 36 sentence beginnings in their own words. There are no right answers and nothing to study for.
Expert scoring
Certified scorers analyze the responses against research-built manuals, using methods designed to reduce bias.
A personal report
Written for that one leader: where they are, what might be next, what might be holding them back, and practices for the next two to five years.
An individual debrief
A Certified Leadership Maturity Coach walks through the report one on one and helps the leader set goals for their growth.
For the team
Results stay private
The MAP is more sensitive than other assessments, so we never tell a team where each person landed. Every leader has their own debrief. The team sees only a combined, anonymous profile: where its center of gravity sits, its strengths, and the gaps that hold it back.
From that profile we design workshops for exactly what this team needs next. For example, one group may need help prioritizing time and attention; another may need to get better at hearing opposing views.
Workshops we often build from a team profile
- Emotional intelligence and self-regulation
- Communication
- Giving and receiving feedback
- Staying composed in challenging situations
- Team dynamics
- Listening to opposing views
- Prioritizing time and attention
Developmental return on investment
Measuring growth over time
Most leadership programs end with a satisfaction survey. With the MAP, a team can optionally take the assessment again afterward, so you can see how much it actually developed. Because the MAP measures growth itself, it can show the return on any leadership development you invest in, not only ours.
One example from our work
A leadership program at a large US bank
Every program we design is different, and this is just one way the MAP can anchor one. For leaders in a large US bank’s Agile Center of Excellence, two cohorts of eight, we built a six-month program. Every leader took the MAP and had a private debrief. We combined the results into an anonymous team profile and explored it together in a workshop, where nobody discussed their own results. We then designed a series of workshops for the team’s stage of development, with one-on-one coaching between them. At the end, the leaders took the MAP again to measure their growth.
Is it the right tool?
Who the MAP is for
A strong fit
- Leadership teams that are established and ready to go deep on their growth
- Organizations investing in leadership development that want to measure the return
- Leaders facing complexity that their current way of thinking can’t quite handle
Choose something else for
- A brand-new team still getting to know each other. Start with DiSC
- Hiring, promotion, or performance decisions
- Anyone who is being pressured to share their results
Who guides the process
Certified Leadership Maturity Coaches
Our team includes Certified Leadership Maturity Coaches, trained through the Vertical Development Academy. They guide every debrief and design every workshop, so each leader’s results are interpreted with care and expertise.
Questions we often hear
How is the MAP different from DiSC?
DiSC describes your preferred style of working and communicating, and it’s designed to be shared openly with your team. The MAP goes deeper: it measures how you make sense of yourself, others, and the world, and where you are in your development as a leader. Because it is more personal, we handle it privately. Learn about our DiSC workshops
Who sees my results?
You and your coach. We never tell a team what stage anyone is at. The team only ever sees an anonymous combined profile, and each leader decides what, if anything, to share about their own report.
How do you use the MAP with a team?
Every engagement is customized. A common starting point is an orientation session on leadership maturity and the research, the assessment itself, an individual debrief for every leader, and a group workshop built on the team’s combined profile. Longer programs can add tailored workshops, one-on-one coaching, and a second assessment to measure growth.
Can you measure the return on our leadership development?
Yes. Taking the MAP before and after a program shows how much leaders have actually developed. Because it measures growth itself rather than satisfaction with a course, it can show the return on any leadership development you’re investing in, not only ours.
The Maturity Assessment Profile (MAP) is provided by the Vertical Development Academy (VeDA).
Talk to us about your leadership team
Tell us where your leaders are headed. We’ll help you decide whether the MAP is the right place to start.
Book a discovery call