Leadership Growth Requires More Than Experience
Years of experience alone doesn't guarantee leadership growth. I've seen this in our leadership classes with people who have been leading for many years. Experience can make us better, but it can also make us comfortable.
We develop habits. We learn how we like to handle conflict, delegate work, communicate expectations, run meetings, make decisions, and solve problems. Eventually, we may stop thinking about why we do those things and simply do what we've always done. That's where reflection becomes an important part of leadership development.
For me, reflection isn't simply looking back at something that happened. It's engaging my thinking brain. Why did that work? Why didn't it? What might I have missed? Did I respond that way because it was the right response for that situation, or because it has become my automatic response?
Experience combined with continued learning, reflection, and application creates growth. Without those pieces, we risk having the same leadership year over and over again. We may accumulate years of experience without allowing those years to change how we lead. That matters because our habits eventually become part of the leadership legacy we leave behind. The way we consistently communicate, respond, delegate, listen, make decisions, and treat people shapes their experience of being led by us.
Leadership fluency is valuable. Leadership autopilot is dangerous.
Leadership Growth Helps You See Beyond the Requirement
I saw this change in myself during one of my leadership roles. Fundraising was part of my job description. Early in the role, I viewed it primarily as a responsibility that needed to be met. It was part of my job, so I needed to make sure it got done. I also had an employee who absolutely loved fundraising. She enjoyed everything about it, from coming up with an idea and planning the event to seeing it through, cleaning up afterward, and ultimately having the opportunity to donate the funds we raised. She had an enthusiasm for it that was hard to miss.
As I became more comfortable in my own role, I had enough experience to step back and see something beyond the requirement on my job description. I began talking with her about her interest and ability, and eventually I delegated some of that responsibility to her and gave her room to run with her ideas. It became one of the best decisions I made in that role.
She had an incredible ability to get other people excited about what she was planning. We would show up after work and on weekends to support fundraising events because her enthusiasm was contagious. By recognizing something she was passionate about and giving her an opportunity to use that strength, we eventually achieved some record-setting fundraising results.
The leadership lesson for me wasn't simply that delegation works. Experience had helped me stop seeing only the responsibility and start seeing the opportunity. I was still accountable for fundraising. That hadn't changed. What had changed was my ability to think beyond simply completing what was required of me. I could notice the person in front of me, recognize what she brought to the team, have a conversation with her about it, and consider a better way to accomplish the work.
Leadership Growth Means Staying Out of Autopilot
The longer we lead, the easier it can be to assume that experience itself will keep making us better. I don't think it works that way.
Communication still matters. Relationships still matter. Accountability, delegation, listening, decision-making, and developing people still matter. There isn't an advanced version of leadership where we leave those fundamentals behind. Leadership growth comes from continuing to learn, reflect on what we're doing, and apply what we've learned with the benefit of experience behind us.
For newer leaders, that means giving yourself time to develop fluency. You aren't supposed to know instinctively how to handle every situation you've never encountered before. Learn the principles, apply them, think about what happened, and keep building from there.
For experienced leaders, the challenge may be different. We have to make sure fluency hasn't quietly become autopilot.
Think about one leadership habit you've developed over the years. It doesn't have to be a bad habit. It may even be something that has served you well. Ask yourself: Do I still do this because it's the best response, or because it's become my response?
That's one reason we created our Leadership Self-Reflection Assessment. It gives leaders an opportunity to intentionally step out of the day-to-day work and think about how they're leading, where they're strong, and where there may still be room to grow. It's a free resource and you can access it here: Leadership Self-Reflection Assessment
When I was a new leader, I expected experience to make me better at leadership, and it did. What I didn't understand then was that experience wouldn't eventually eliminate the need to learn. Instead, it would give me more experience to bring to the learning.
Today, I can recognize situations faster. I know when I have enough information to make a decision and when I need to ask another question. I can see opportunities I might have missed when I was concentrating simply on doing my job correctly. But that growth continues only if I'm willing to keep thinking about how I lead.
Leadership development doesn't have a finish line because experience isn't the end of learning. It gives us more to learn from.
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