What Is a Leadership Map?
A leadership map is a practical way to see how you actually lead, not just how you wish you did. In my work on Leadership Cartography, I use leadership mapping to surface the real patterns behind your decisions, your stress responses, and your default leadership style.
Instead of vague feedback like “be more strategic,” your leadership map gives you something concrete to work with so you can adjust how you show up in the system around you.
Leadership mapping isn’t about fixing your personality. It’s about charting the landscape you’re already leading inside—your tendencies, constraints, and pathways—so that you can make more grounded, intentional choices as a manager.
What’s Inside Your Leadership Map™
Leadership Cartography™ unfolds in three clear phases — mapping your current terrain, then guiding you through increasingly complex leadership landscapes.
Each phase of Leadership Cartography™ equips you with cartographic tools—practical maps you can use to navigate the terrain of modern leadership. Not theory. Not prescriptions. Just clear maps for the journey ahead.
1. Discover Your Terrain
Begin with the Leadership Pathway Explorer™ — Locate yourself on the map. See where you're standing today — your natural leadership strengths and the terrain you navigate best.
2. Map Your Pathway
Unlock your cartographic toolkit — practical maps built for your terrain, not someone else's route. Each tool helps you navigate the leadership challenges you're actually facing..
3. Navigate Your Journey
Expand your range with advanced cartographic tools — maps that keep you steady as the terrain gets more complex. Practical, printable, ready when you need them.
Discover your pathway in 5 minutes.
Explore Your Leadership Pathway™
Leadership Cartography™ recognizes five distinct leadership terrains. Every leader's map begins with one of these five—but great leaders learn to navigate across multiple terrains as they grow. Which one feels like home?
Lead with Heart™
Build trust through emotional presence, empathy, and relational clarity.
Lead with Support™
Provide structure from a place of steadiness, care, and inner strength.
Lead Together™
Cultivate shared success through inclusion, alignment, and collaborative clarity.
Lead with Precision™
Clarify strategy through systems, logic, and intentional execution.
Lead with Purpose™
Ground your leadership in values, vision, and enduring meaning.
You're not locked into one terrain. Leadership Cartography™ helps you expand your range—learning to navigate new landscapes as your leadership demands it.
Turn your pathway into practice. Subscribe to the Map Drawer for monthly tools.
FAQ’s
Q1. What is Leadership Cartography™
Leadership Cartography™ is the discipline of mapping leadership identity—helping you see where you're leading from right now and what terrain you navigate best. It's not a test score or a personality box. It's a navigational system that shows you your current location and gives you maps for the journey ahead.
Q2. How does Leadership Cartography™ work?
You begin with the Leadership Pathway Explorer™—a short quiz that locates you on the map. Then you receive cartographic tools (Field Notes and practical toolkits) that help you navigate your specific terrain. Each pathway offers maps you can use in real moments—not abstract theory, just clear navigation for the leadership challenges you're facing.
Q3. Why Leadership Cartography™ instead of a personality test?
Personality tests describe who you are—a fixed type. Leadership Cartography™ maps where you lead from and where you can expand. You're not a type to be labeled. You're terrain to be mapped. And as you grow, you learn to navigate multiple terrains—adapting your leadership to whatever landscape you're facing.
Q4. Who created Leadership Cartography™?
Leadership Cartography™ was developed by Catherine Insler and The Manager's Mind Mapping Company™ as an identity-first alternative to traditional leadership development. Instead of prescribing what leaders should do, we map who they are—then give them practical tools to navigate from there.