If you have been following my work then you know that I love showing how my leadership principles apply in real life. If you haven’t, well then now you know. Here is the latest question I received and my response to the question:
“What is the implication of the statement “No leader can have a store of knowledge reserved from the past that can fully respond to today’s leadership challenges”? – Anon
This is an interesting question, one which I’d like to tackle in two parts:
- Experience
- The Statement
Experience
Everything we do, the way we adapt and the way we behave is based on our own experiences. For example, within a project-based environment it is very common, when the project is struggling, for a new Project Manager arrive. The new manager sees the problems and believes that they can change the situation based on their experience. The new manager discusses these changes with the team but they are uninterested. The project is failing, and they have been through all these changes before. Based on their experience they are not willing to support the new manager.
Everyday people limit themselves based on their experience. Leaders are different because they utilise experience to be able to adapt to any situation. In order to behave more like a leader, we focus on using our experience to help us adapt to any situation. Experience comes in two components:
- Experience you have
- Experience you don’t have
As leaders, the choice is ours. We can decide whether to use the positive sections within our lives to make better and more beneficial changes to our lives, or we can decide to remain negative. Use your life experience in order to adapt to any situation and create a positive outcome. I know because this is exactly what happened to me. I was running a family run wedding business, and for the first year or so we just about broke even.
After that, through poor marketing, we struggled to secure clients. I could have decided at that point that because the business failed it means that I am a failure and just go back to what I was always doing. Instead, I treated that as experience. I focused on my failures as areas to improve upon and moved forward. I decided to find the positive in my life experience.
Learn from the experience you do not have. Warren Buffet, during a co-interview beside Jay Z, real name Sean Carter, with Forbes, was asked by the interviewer what advice he would give to Jay Z. One of the areas of advice that Warren Buffet gave was to learn from others. Buffet said that, not only Jay Z but everybody “should look to people they admire and list what they admire about that person.” Once they have done that, they should model them.
Tony Robbins, speaking to Inc. during a Q&A session, explained that aspiring leaders can save themselves years by learning from the people they admire most. Why spend years learning the hard way when you can learn the same lessons in two weeks by studying someone you admire? This reinforces the second element of experience, not having it.
As leaders, decision making is a critical part of our position. We decide how to adapt and how to exhibit the right behaviour to any situation to create a positive outcome. People look to leaders to make the decisions that others will not. Ultimately, all decisions to overcome present challenges will be based on experience a leader does and doesn’t have.
The Statement
“No leader can have a store of knowledge reserved from the past that can fully respond to today’s leadership challenges”
The above statement has some truth. Take for example, a leader of a complex project delivering a brand new concept. The leader will definitely not have the experience/ knowledge completely solve the challenge. The leader will need to draw on the experience of those around them to best tackle the challenge.
However, take for example the same leader of a less complex project, one that they have done successful five times before. They, in that situation, do have the experience/ knowledge to tackle the challenges.
Learn exactly how to utilise your experience as a leader now
Ultimately, as I see it, the implication of that statement are that all leaders must accept that they do not have, and do not need to have, all the answers to every problem. They, as responsible leaders, need to draw on the experience from all those around to best solve the problem.
“I always find people smarter than I am. Then my job is to make sure smart people can work together. Stupid people can work together easily, smart people can’t.”
Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba
Thank you for reading, JT.
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