Parachuting Organisational Development Across the Vertical Axis in the Digital Age
Parachuting Organisational Development Across the Vertical Axis in the Digital Age
By Professor Ojo Emmanuel Ademola
The Vertical Axis of Leadership
Leadership in the digital age demands metaphors that capture both urgency and transformation. One of the most compelling is the idea of parachuting organisational development across the vertical axis of business. This image conveys not a casual sprinkling of skills or tools, but a deliberate descent into the very spine of organisational life—reshaping leadership, mindset, and adaptability at every level. It is about embedding transformation vertically, from frontline staff to executive leadership, ensuring that organisations are not merely efficient but resilient, innovative, and future‑ready.
Horizontal Skills Versus Vertical Capacity
The distinction between horizontal and vertical development is crucial. Horizontal development equips managers with new skills—project management techniques, digital dashboards, and compliance frameworks. Vertical development, however, reshapes the very lens through which leaders perceive challenges, paradoxes, and opportunities. It cultivates the ability to hold multiple perspectives, navigate ambiguity, and mobilise teams in ways that transcend transactional efficiency. In a digital age defined by volatility and disruption, this deeper transformation is indispensable.
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Global Case Studies of Vertical Development
Apple provides a telling example. Under Steve Jobs, leadership was visionary and uncompromising. Tim Cook’s tenure has demonstrated a different form of vertical development: methodical, stakeholder‑focused, and inclusive. This shift illustrates how vertical development is not about replacing one skill set with another but about expanding organisational capacity to adapt to new realities without losing coherence.
Unilever offers another case study. Its leadership programmes are not limited to technical knowledge about supply chains or marketing. They challenge leaders to think systemically about climate change, social equity, and long‑term resilience. By parachuting these perspectives into the vertical axis of leadership, Unilever has positioned itself as a global leader in sustainable business, aligning organisational goals with societal imperatives.
Microsoft, during the pandemic, invested heavily in leadership programmes that emphasised resilience and empathy. By parachuting vertical development into its leadership axis, it ensured managers were not merely competent in digital tools but capable of leading human beings through unprecedented disruption.
DBS Bank in Singapore exemplifies this approach in the financial sector. Its leadership deliberately parachuted vertical development into its organisational axis by challenging managers to think like start‑up entrepreneurs, embrace experimentation, and hold systemic perspectives on customer experience. The result has been a transformation that not only digitised banking processes but redefined the very culture of the institution.
Tradition Meets Transformation
The subtle genius of parachuting organisational development across the vertical axis lies in its ability to harmonise tradition with transformation. Organisations in the digital age are often caught between the weight of legacy systems and the urgency of innovation. Vertical development provides the bridge, enabling leaders to reinterpret heritage not as a burden but as a foundation for resilience. Consider the way Siemens has navigated its long industrial history while embracing digitalisation and sustainability. By parachuting vertical development into its leadership culture, Siemens has cultivated executives who can honour the company’s engineering legacy while simultaneously re‑imagining its role in renewable energy and smart infrastructure. This dual capacity—respecting the past while shaping the future—is precisely what vertical development achieves when parachuted into the organisational axis. It ensures that leaders are not merely trained to adopt new tools but are transformed to perceive continuity and change as complementary forces rather than competing demands. In this way, organisations achieve coherence, sustaining their identity while remaining agile enough to thrive in turbulent markets.
The Human Dimension
Equally significant is the human dimension of this approach. Vertical development, parachuted across the organisational axis, does not simply produce more efficient managers; it nurtures leaders who can inspire trust, foster inclusivity, and mobilise collective intelligence. The digital age, with its relentless pace and technological saturation, risks reducing human beings to data points or algorithmic outputs. Yet organisations that parachute vertical development into their structures resist this reduction, insisting that leadership must remain profoundly human. Take the example of Patagonia, whose leadership culture is rooted in environmental stewardship and employee empowerment. By embedding vertical development into its organisational axis, Patagonia has cultivated leaders who can hold systemic perspectives on sustainability while nurturing authentic relationships with employees and communities. This human‑centred verticality ensures that organisational goals are not pursued at the expense of dignity or purpose but are achieved through cultures of meaning and belonging. In the digital age, such parachuted development is not merely strategic; it is moral, reminding organisations that their greatest asset remains the human spirit.
The Parachute as Urgency and Safety
The metaphor of parachuting is apt because vertical development often requires sudden, decisive interventions. Organisations cannot afford to wait for gradual cultural osmosis; they must drop transformative practices into the very centre of their leadership structures. Global consultancies such as Deloitte and McKinsey have reframed their leadership development offerings accordingly. They emphasise vertical development as the lever for agility and future‑readiness, arguing that without it, organisations will remain trapped in outdated paradigms even as they adopt the latest technologies. The parachute, in this sense, is both a symbol of urgency and a mechanism of safety, ensuring that organisations land securely in the future rather than crash into obsolescence.
Resilience in Practice
The implications for organisational goals are profound. Vertical development enables leaders to balance innovation with stability, to mobilise teams around shared visions that transcend short‑term metrics, and to foster cultures of trust and adaptability. Google has long emphasised psychological safety as a cornerstone of its teams. This is a vertical development principle, parachuted into the axis of organisational life, ensuring that innovation is not stifled by fear or hierarchy. By cultivating leaders who can hold ambiguity and foster trust, Google has sustained its position at the forefront of technological innovation.
Challenges Ahead
Parachuting vertical development is not without challenges. Organisations risk superficial adoption if they treat it as a training module rather than a deep transformation. Resistance to change is inevitable, particularly among leaders accustomed to transactional models of management. Moreover, there is the danger of digital overload—where organisations focus excessively on tools and platforms without embedding the cultural shifts that vertical development requires. The parachute must be carefully deployed, with clarity of purpose and alignment across levels, lest it entangle rather than empower.
The Future of Organisational Success
What makes this approach trending is its resonance with the challenges of the digital age. Organisations are grappling with artificial intelligence, climate change, geopolitical instability, and shifting workforce expectations. Horizontal skills alone cannot equip leaders to navigate such complexities. Vertical development, parachuted across the organisational axis, expands the capacity of leaders to think systemically, act courageously, and mobilise resilient cultures.
For organisations seeking to achieve their goals, the imperative is clear. They must parachute vertical development into leadership structures, ensuring that every level is aligned not merely in skills but in mindset. This requires deliberate investment, courageous leadership, and a willingness to challenge entrenched assumptions. It also requires humility, recognising that no single leader or organisation has all the answers, but that collective capacity can be expanded through vertical development.
The future of success will not be determined by who has the most advanced digital tools but by who has the most adaptive leaders. Parachuting organisational development across the vertical axis is therefore not a luxury but a necessity. It is the lever that enables organisations to land safely in the future, navigate complexity with clarity, and achieve goals that are ambitious yet sustainable. In the digital age, where disruption is the norm, this vertical parachute may well be the most important organisational equipment.
Professor Ademola Emmanuel Ojo, is Africa’s First Professor of Cybersecurity and Information Technology Management, Chartered Manager, UK Digital Journalist, Strategic Advisor & Prophetic Mobiliser for National Transformation, and General Evangelist of CAC Nigeria and Overseas