As a PhD qualified leadership scientist, Aiden currently holds an academic position as the Menzies Senior Research Fellow in Leadership and Complexity at the Australian National University. He regularly collaborates with scientists and practitioners to undertake research on leadership — particularly research that has an emphasis on leadership and complexity.

Aiden offers a range of services related to leadership science including collaborative research projects, advice on research design, survey and assessment development, iteration and refinement of surveys and assessments, psychometric analysis (using Rasch modelling techniques), advanced statistical analyses (using Structural Equation Modelling and multivariate statistics), public speaking on topics related to leadership, and participation in expert panels on the science of leadership.

Our three complexity workshops are based on one of the most highly validated approaches to complexity and supported by several hundred published scientific studies, i.e., The Model of Hierarchical Complexity (MHC).

MHC is a formal theory of complexity with cognitive-developmental origins. For a brief introduction to MHC click here, for a more thorough introduction to MHC click here, for an advanced introduction to the mathematics of MHC click here and here.

At this point in time, we offer three main complexity workshops:

Workshop 1 — Learning about stages of complexity

Workshop 2 — Measuring the stage of complexity of leadership teams

Workshop 3 — Making sense of a complex issue i.e., organisational, social, political, etc.

For more detailed information about our complexity workshops, click the Complexity Workshops button.

Put simply, our lofty goal is to make the best leadership measures in the world!

Some popular surveys and assessments currently used by leadership practitioners look and sound great, but sometimes lack thorough validation or have not necessarily been shown to predict important outcomes such as leader performance. In others cases, these popular measures are limited to measuring psychological and behavioural constructs rather than a broader range of constructs that have been shown to impact leadership. Finally, a number of measures apply generic constructs (e.g. values, personality preferences, and behavioural styles) that are used to characterise the general adult population rather than specific constructs that may be more relevant to organisational leadership in particular.

Several strong measures are presented in the academic literature, but some of them have only been validated on small samples or are limited to measuring constructs that may seem inaccessible or irrelevant to practitioners.

Needless to say, there are significant opportunities to improve the measurement of leadership across the board!

Aiden has significant expertise in measurement, psychometrics, and advanced statistical analyses. We are in the process of developing a full suite of leadership measures that focus on:

• Measuring the most important aspect of leadership;

• Measuring them from a diverse range of perspectives;

• Measuring them with a high degree of reliability and validity;

• Showing if and how they are related to important outcomes e.g., leadership effectiveness;

• Explaining variability in leadership outcomes (i.e., why does one leader seem to be more effective than another?).

As an up-and-coming provider of leadership measures, we present multiple unique points of difference.

• We are leadership specialists — We only measure constructs that matter to leadership rather than generic constructs that apply to the general population.

• We think integratively and innovatively — Our measures go beyond psychological (e.g. values, personality preferences) and behavioural (e.g., behavioural styles, behavioural competencies) constructs because they only reveal part of the story.

• We have specialist training — We understand psychometrics and advanced statistical analyses so we know what great measurement is all about.

• We partner with professional test developers and psychometricians — We analyse our own data so we know how our measures perform, but we also invite (and encourage!) others to analyse our data to avoid bias and uncover blindspots.

• We balance science and practice — We strive to exemplify the rigour of science and the pragmatism of practice so our measures are equally applicable to scholarly research and workplace applications.

• We listen deeply — We listen to what leadership scholars and practitioners need from their leadership measures, the contexts in which they will be used, how the measures will be applied, etc.

We are currently developing and validating:

• Individual Leader Sensemaking Assessment (ILSA), which is based on The Model of Hierarchical Complexity;

• Team Leadership Sensemaking Assessment (TLSA), which is based on The Model of Hierarchical Complexity.

Aiden has over 25 years of international experience across Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States working with various top-tier management consulting firms and other blue-chip organisations. He is frequently acknowledged as one of the most skilled, intense, and outcomes-oriented management consultants in the industry.

Aiden offers a range of leadership consulting services for middle leaders through to senior executives including projects that focus on leadership competency frameworks, leadership strategy, architecture of a suite of leadership initiatives, design of leader and/or executive development programs and practices, program facilitation, development of measurement frameworks, and evaluation of the efficacy of leadership programs.

Wherever possible, Aiden likes turning consulting projects into scientific research projects. By taking this approach, organisations can work towards achieving their leadership outcomes while also contributing to the field by publishing research findings.

Contemporary workplaces have become increasingly complex. To be effective, leaders must navigate a variety of complex considerations including environmental impacts, political tensions, the current culture wars, industry trends, technological advancements, ethical considerations, service delivery pressures, stakeholders with polarised perspectives, and so on.

There is a lot of interest in supporting leaders to navigate the complexity of contemporary workplaces. However, the market is currently saturated with misinformation and unsupported claims about complexity theories, measures, and interventions. Sometimes this market is referred to as ‘vertical development’, but this is not a term we use to describe our work.

Our approach to complexity consulting is informed by a long intellectual tradition that has enquired into the nature of complexity such as General Systems Theory (Von Bertalanffy, 1968), Complex Adaptive Systems (Holland, 1995), Complexity Theory (Marion & Uhl-Bien, 2001), cybernetics (Ashby, 1956), systems thinking (Cabrera, Cabrera, Midgley, 2023), the Model of Hierarchical Complexity (MHC) (Commons et all., 1998), and so on.

For over 15 years, Aiden has specialised in complexity consulting. Through this time, we have learnt that successful complexity consulting requires at least four main ingredients:

• Well-validated theory;

• Measures that have been shown to measure complexity;

• Interventions that have been demonstrated to foster complexity;

• Knowledgeable practitioners who understand how to make the science of complexity practical for organisational leaders.

If you’re interested in learning more about how our complexity consulting can support your leaders to navigate complexity more skilfully, then please reach out for a conversation or check out our complexity workshops.

Aiden has over 25 years of international experience across Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States working with various top-tier management consulting firms and other blue-chip organisations. He is frequently acknowledged as one of the most skilled, intense, and outcomes-oriented management consultants in the industry.

Aiden offers a range of consulting services related to organisational development including:

• Organisational transformation — Lead a transformation program that will result in deep structural changes to people, process, technological, and structural aspects of your organisation;

• Organisational design — Develop and implement a high level operating model or detailed organisational design;

• Organisational culture — Embed changes to your organisational culture and ways of working;

• Change management — Create conditions in which your leaders and people rally around fundamental changes to your organisational system;

• Human capital management — Strengthen the performance of your human capital functions including your employee value proposition, recruitment, onboarding, performance management, talent management, and exit processes;

• Learning and development — Develop new learning and development programs or refine existing ones.

Wherever possible, Aiden likes turning consulting projects into scientific research projects. By taking this approach, organisations can work towards achieving outcomes while also contributing to the field by publishing research findings.