Mature leaders demonstrate both gravitas and agility. And this comes through directly as well as subtly through actions, decisions, and how they present themselves. Ask any leader you admire about their most formative learning, and they will likely tell you about experiences … and not necessarily the good ones. Ask them what enabled them to learn from those experiences, and you hear things like, “I changed my perspective,” “I got to walk in their shoes,” “I know what it is like to be in the trenches,” “I hit bottom and bounced back,” “I realized it was not about me,” “I was humbled over and over again till I was ready to ask for help.”
Mature leaders do not need to have a lot of “time on planet” to qualify, but they do need to have invested what time they have had with their full selves, expanding their awareness, building their understanding, and allowing themselves to be changed and grown through their experiences. Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. Similarly, maturity comes from seeking, practicing, failing/ succeeding, learning from all of it, and adopting the learning into new ways of both being and experiencing the world & others.
Download Article 1K Club
