The Four Stages of Leadership Maturity: Why the CEO Must Change Before the Company Can

Feb 19, 2026

Jennifer Garvey Berger, leadership expert and author who studies adult development, outlines four predictable stages of leadership maturity. She discusses the emotional surprises of leading, why knowing your stage matters, how to self-diagnose, common sticking points for high performers, and practical habits to accelerate growth.

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ADVICE

Ask Why It Upsets You First

Diagnose your own developmental stance by asking why situations upset you instead of blaming external actors.
Berger advises tracking inner reactions to learn what mental capacities you lack and target growth accordingly.

ADVICE

Deliberate Reflection Beats Mere Time

Time alone won't produce leadership maturity; deliberate reflection is required.
Berger's research found age isn't decisive — those who reflect and learn grow faster than older leaders who do not.

ADVICE

Use Perspective Habits To Grow Fast

Practice habits that enlarge perspective: take others' views, ask different questions, and see systems not just individuals.
Berger gives examples like asking "How could I be wrong?" and tracing incentives that create behavior.

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In the acquisition entrepreneurship ecosystem, it’s well understood that the companies that we acquire often undergo change, maturation, and evolution under the watchful eye of the new CEO. What I think we tend to under appreciate, however, is the change, maturation and evolution required of the CEO herself.

When I think back to the CEO that I was in year 6 of my own hold period, that person is almost unrecognizable relative to the CEO that I was in my first 6-12 months at the helm… and that evolution wasn’t just specific to commercial considerations, though there were plenty of examples of those. A lot of it concerned the personal, psychological, and emotional realities of being both a leader and an entrepreneur.

My guest today, Jennifer Garvey Berger, is the Author of Changing on the Job (among several other books), and has introduced a framework that shows what she thinks are the four rather predictable stages of leadership maturity.

In our discussion today, we discuss what those stages are, what fundamentally changes from one stage to the next, why it’s important for a leader to know which of the 4 stages that they’re currently in, how to self-diagnose, where she most commonly sees high-performing executives or new leaders get “stuck”, and whether leadership maturity is simply a function of the passage of time.