The dawn of a new year comes with a focus on starting something new. The cold, dark days of January seem like an odd source of inspiration, but the break from routine provided by the holidays is a good time for self-reflection. However, despite our best intentions the large crowds at the gym and the short lines at the bakery regress to the mean before too long. The spark of energy we get at the start of a new year fades over time.
New experiences are far too important for leaders to pursue only once a year. You cannot become, or remain, a great leader without embracing new things.
New people and new experiences make leaders stronger
Embracing new things does not mean running out to buy the latest iPhone or finding ways to apply artificial intelligence to your work. Leaders should be aware of current events and trends of interest to the people they are leading, but the new that help you grow as a leader is not new to the world, but new to you. New means something you have not previously experienced, even if it’s been in the world a long time. The Japanese tea ceremony is centuries old, but I’ve never observed one. Traveling to Japan and sitting for tea would be new to me.
The experience of new to me is powerful for leaders. The world is an amazing place full of life – people, places, and nature. We can directly experience only a small bit of it. Our perspective, and our ability to see the world as other people see it, is therefore limited. The more a leader seeks experiences new to them, the more they learn about the world we live in, and the more they can empathize with others. Empathy for other people is fundamental to great leadership. Someone who has experienced more of what the world has to offer is better prepared to lead others.
Every new experience is also a reminder that we don’t know everything. Successful leaders may start to think they have seen it all. This mindset prevents growth. The experience of learning about something new is inspiring but also humbling. It shows us that we aren’t familiar with things that other people know well. Learning something new today should give us pause, as yesterday we tried to lead people without that knowledge or perspective. We should ask ourselves what else is out there that someday we’ll wish we knew today.
Our relationship with new changes over time
The pursuit of new experiences needs to be a life-long endeavor, but it becomes more difficult as we grow older. In our twenties when we’re just getting started, we’re surrounded by new things. We live with new challenges at work, new places to live, new friends, new freedoms and responsibilities, and new relationships. These new experiences can feel inspirational. New things become a source of motivation for young leaders if only because they are new and different.
The new experiences have a cumulative beneficial effect by creating a psychological opening for creativity in every area of a young person’s life. A new job in a new town means it’s easy to take up a new fitness activity. The new people they meet give them new ideas. The excitement of new relationships adds electricity to everything else they do. In our young days there may be fits and starts, and not everything works out over time, but the constant experimentation allows us to grow rapidly.
For new leaders, the excitement of new things fuels beneficial experimentation. The only way to learn about how we work in leadership relationships is to try things out. Surrounded in the psychological safety of all the new in their lives, young leaders are free to tweak who they are as leaders for the better.
To an older observer, they may seem to be flailing about. They may adjust their self identity frequently, or dive into new hobbies only to lose interest quickly. Those frequent changes are not signs of weakness or uncertainty. They are indicators that a young leader is fully engaged with their own development as a person and leader. Eventually, through continuous experimentation, young leaders discover who they are.
The story begins to change as we grow older. Our lives that seemed to have limitless potential when we were starting out now track down a narrower path. The pursuit of excellence in one field necessarily closes doors to others. Choosing a career means choosing what part of the amazing world we will experience and what part we will not. But rather than mourning the opportunity cost of our chosen path, we start to grow comfortable with it. We may settle into positive long term relationships. We may put down roots in one place that we’ve grown fond of. We tend to have new experiences less frequently.
The energy that powered us to grow rapidly as leaders in our young days may start to fade.
Turning away from new has negative consequences for leaders
For mid-career leaders, there is nothing more dangerous than giving up on the pursuit of new things. If we stop learning more about the world, our capacity for empathy will stop expanding. We put ourselves at risk of disconnecting from people who face challenges different from the ones we face now or faced when we were younger. Like an aging athlete who cannot run as fast as they used to, we start to lose our ability to lead other people.
The world around us hasn’t stopped changing. If we fail to keep pace we will find ourselves at risk of being left behind. The new generation of twenty-somethings in our workplace may not be as professionally proficient as we are now, but their comfort with new things means it will not take them long to creatively devise even better ways of doing business. We’re supposed to be leading those young people. Their creativity is not a threat, but instead a powerful force for good that we should encourage. We should allow them to lead us to experience new things.
The willingness to always try new things is closely linked to curiosity, a leadership trait that pays dividends in so many other places. A leader with an enthusiasm for new is more likely to build an inclusive climate. New in this sense means new people with different backgrounds and different ideas. The leader comfortable with new perspectives is more likely to find the best ideas and end up with the best performance outcomes. A leader who ignores new perspectives turns off their curiosity, making it likely that they will build an exclusive climate that favors established people and ideas. The exclusive leader will be outperformed by curious, inclusive leaders willing to try new things.
To stay sharp, find ways to embrace new things all the time
Leaders should have a general strategy of learning more about the wonderful world we live in. We should seek out new knowledge, have new experiences, and meet new people with different perspectives. These efforts can be as simple as reading a new book or worldly periodicals like The Economist or National Geographic. Travel to new places. Don’t be afraid to go places you otherwise wouldn’t. If you normally find yourself eating in fancy restaurants in bigger cities, sitting in a diner in the country can be a profoundly enlightening experience. Listening to the conversations, or even having the courage to join them, will earn you a greater understanding of your fellow human beings who don’t think the way you do. That perspective will help you lead other people wherever else you go.
We should be open to self-reflection after learning more about the world. We should ask ourselves how our new knowledge or experience changes the way we see or do things. The most difficult part of a new experience is being confronted by something that conflicts with what we previously thought was true about the world. It’s difficult to realize that we’ve been wrong about things in the past. But for mid-career leaders to continue to succeed, we must be open to that possibility and have the courage to change course.
The course changes don’t need to substantial or even apparent to other people to be beneficial. Even without the external stimulus of some new experience, we should always experiment with small changes. Small changes help keep us fresh, bringing some of the energy that we may have felt when we were younger. These experiments could be as simple as changing the route we drive to work each morning or trying a new shampoo. Change your lunch routine. Listen to some new music. It really doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it is new to you. Sometimes you may find that you still prefer the old way, but sometimes you may discover a new bit of the world you never knew about, a piece of the world that brings you joy. Joyful leaders find ways to share inspiration with others and make their part of the world a better place. Don’t be afraid to reinvent yourself a little. You’re never too old to try a new anything.