The role of wide experience in succesful leadership.

What is it about?

Leaders draw on experience to inform their decision making. Whilst senior leaders will have a wealth of experience to which they can refer, those appointed to their first leadership position will have far less. This paper explains why experience is important in leadership, and identifies five different places in which novice leaders can look to find prior, related, experience. From this, the paper argues that, for both the prospective and novice leader, and their line managers, not only should activities be sought that will broaden experiences over time, but also gives an indication of the areas in which such activities may lie.

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Why is it important?

Experience is a key component of successful leadership because rich experience gives the leader a wide range of internal scripts to draw on. Good leaders draw on experience from a range of contexts, and so for prospective and novice leaders, it makes sense to gain the widest range of experiences they can. Of course, the paradox is that experience is something that can only be drawn on retrospectively, it often isn't planned. This paper demonstrates the importance of gaining experience that goes beyond the confines of the role, and gives guidance as to areas within which current experiences can support future leadership roles.

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