Lasting growth requires confronting the hidden fears that shape our behavior.

Ancient philosophy and neuroscience both show how our perception is filtered by our past experience.

Psychological safety allows curiosity to replace defensiveness and accelerate growth.

Character develops by aspiring to virtue, exposing blind spots, and practicing new responses.

Nearly 40 years ago, while working toward my Ph.D., I enrolled in an advanced Italian literature course to satisfy a language requirement. Because of my Italian heritage, my having studied the language for three years in college, and my having grown up in an extended family that spoke it, I chose Italian.

I expected a rigorous academic hurdle, which it was. However, to my surprise, I found myself reading Dante’s Inferno in its original form in Italian. I discovered that I not only admired the poetic form but also the allegory and the hidden meaning of this masterful work. Only decades later, after coaching hundreds of CEOs and senior executives, did I realize Dante had quietly handed me a map for human development that would be the missing piece not only in the puzzle of my own psychological work, but also that of my clients.

Dante begins not in Paradise but in the Inferno, but before there is ascent, there is descent. The Greeks called this katabasis—a journey beneath appearances into what is hidden. That image has stayed with me because so much of leadership development emphasizes only the climb: becoming more resilient, more strategic,........

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