For decades, leadership was built on a quiet assumption: that the world, while imperfect, was fundamentally stable. Markets cycled. Institutions endured. Rules evolved slowly enough for experience to accumulate and guide decisions with confidence. Leaders learned patterns, applied frameworks, and relied on what had worked before.
Much of my early career was built in that environment – where five-year plans were tangible, strategy decks held their relevance, and continuity was a reasonable expectation.
That assumption no longer holds.
Today’s leaders operate in an environment defined less by cycles and more by sustained disruption – geopolitical fractures, technological acceleration, demographic shifts, climate shocks, and a growing erosion of institutional trust.
Volatility is no longer an interruption. It is the baseline.
Across restructurings, reorganizations, and crises – including the Global Financial Crisis – I learned how quickly institutions that appear durable can become fragile.
In this environment, a difficult truth emerges: experience, once leadership’s greatest asset, can quietly become its greatest liability.
The Comfort of Familiarity
Most senior leaders are not short on data or advice. If anything, they are overwhelmed by it. They have accumulated decades of firsthand lessons.
The greater risk is false certainty – the instinct to solve today’s problems using models formed yesterday. Many leadership frameworks and governance models were designed for continuity. When disruption was episodic, experience functioned as a reliable map. But when disruption becomes persistent, maps age quickly.
What once provided clarity can become comfort. And comfort can dull judgment.
I have caught myself, more than once, assuming “we’ve seen this before” – only to realize the underlying dynamics had fundamentally changed.
From Maps to Compasses
The leaders who struggle most today are not those without experience, but those who treat experience as instruction rather than input.
There is an important distinction:
- Experience as memory anchors leaders to the past.
• Experience as wisdom sharpens judgment in the present.
In stable systems, detailed maps are useful. In unstable terrain, leaders need a compass.
A compass does not tell you exactly where to step. It provides direction when visibility is poor. It requires interpretation, trade-offs, and decisions without the comfort of precedent.
Leadership is shifting – from execution grounded in certainty to judgment exercised under ambiguity.
The Real Leadership Currency: Judgment
Judgment is not instinct. It is not confidence. And it is certainly not speed alone.
Judgment is the ability to:
- Act without full information
• Move with urgency without eroding trust
• Hold conviction without ego
• Adapt without abandoning values
It is forged through exposure to uncertainty – when outcomes are unclear and accountability is real.
I have seen confident decisions unravel within weeks when regulations shifted, politics changed, or market shocks rewrote their underlying assumptions. Experience did not prevent the surprise – but judgment determined how quickly we recalibrated.
Many leaders built their experience in systems that absorbed mistakes. Today, systems are thinner, faster, and less forgiving. Decisions ripple across borders and markets instantly.
Leadership becomes less about certainty and more about calibrated action under pressure.
Strengthening Judgment in Practice
Judgment does not improve by accident. It sharpens through deliberate effort.
Leaders can strengthen it by:
- Actively seeking diverse viewpoints – especially from younger colleagues, different geographies, or adjacent industries.
• Separating signal from ego by asking: Am I relying too heavily on past success?
• Building a pause into decisions – not hesitation, but calibration.
• Running rigorous debriefs, including after successful outcomes: What did we assume? What surprised us? What would we adjust next time?
Some of the most valuable course corrections in my career came not from failures, but from dissecting decisions that “worked” – and recognizing how much luck or timing had contributed.
Adapting the Lens
I experienced this recalibration early in my time leading teams in Asia. In many Western environments, participation in meetings is equated with engagement. Leaders ask open questions. Hands go up. Debate signals commitment.
That model does not automatically translate across many Asian cultural contexts. Norms around hierarchy, respect, and group harmony shape how people contribute. Silence does not imply disengagement – but it can be misinterpreted that way.
Executives accustomed to Western norms may repeat questions, assuming hesitation reflects lack of preparation. I learned that if I wanted contribution, I needed to redesign the structure. Rather than posing broad questions to the room, I invited individuals to lead topics where they had expertise, share success stories, or frame discussion around achievements.
Participation increased – not because competence changed, but because the format did.
Operating across Thailand, China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore reinforced a consistent lesson: leadership frameworks do not travel intact. They must be translated, not transplanted.
Experience had given me a template. The environment required adaptation.
Why Nostalgia Is Dangerous
One of the most underestimated risks in leadership today is nostalgia.
Across industries and geographies, leaders still say:
- “We’ve seen this before.”
• “This is just another cycle.”
Sometimes they are right. Many times, they are not.
I have learned to treat that instinct – especially in myself – as a warning signal rather than reassurance.
Successful leaders recognize the need to consciously unlearn parts of their own success. Careers are built on repetition. Reputation is built on consistency. Letting go of proven approaches can feel like abandoning identity.
But leadership is not about preserving the past. It is about stewarding the future.
The Discipline of Unlearning
Unlearning is not forgetting. It is consciously retiring assumptions.
Leaders can begin by:
- Identifying one “rule” that shaped their early success and testing whether it still holds under current conditions.
• Expanding exposure across functions, geographies, and generations to broaden perspective.
• Encouraging dissent early, so disagreement surfaces before disruption forces it.
Unlearning becomes less emotional when it becomes systematic.
Leading Without False Confidence
In uncertain times, there is a temptation to project certainty before it exists. Yet people increasingly detect performative confidence. What they respond to instead is credible calm -leaders who acknowledge uncertainty without being paralyzed by it.
The most trusted leaders consistently:
- Clearly identify what is unknown
- Explain how decisions will be made despite uncertainty
- Anchor action in values rather than predictions
Trust today is built not on omniscience, but on honesty, coherence, and follow-through.
Across multiple markets in Asia, I have reorganized teams in response to shifting strategy and external volatility. Even when strategically sound, such changes create anxiety.
Earlier in my career, I might have presented those changes with more certainty than the environment warranted. Over time, I learned that false certainty erodes trust.
Instead, I outlined clearly what we knew, what we did not yet know, and the assumptions guiding our decisions. I explained why change was necessary and how it aligned with market realities. Most importantly, I made one principle explicit: if our assumptions proved wrong, we would adjust.
The message was no longer “trust the plan.” It became “trust the process.”
Credibility comes not from projecting certainty, but from demonstrating judgment – and the willingness to recalibrate.
Experience, Upgraded
None of this diminishes the value of experience. It reframes it.
Experience still matters – deeply – but only when it evolves with the environment. The most effective leaders treat experience as a reference library, not a rulebook.
They ask:
- Which parts of my experience still apply?
• Which assumptions no longer hold?
• What must be relearned?
Every generation of leaders faces a defining shift. For today’s leaders, it is moving from certainty to judgment – from maps to compasses – from authority rooted in answers to authority earned through clarity under pressure.
The future will not reward those who wait for stability. It will reward those who can lead responsibly while instability persists.
Before your next major decision, pause and ask:
- Is my confidence grounded in current reality – or inherited from past success?
• Where might I be over-indexing on familiarity?
• What belief would I be willing to abandon if the evidence required it?
In an environment where precedent is unreliable, the ultimate competitive advantage is not experience alone.
It is the courage to examine it – and upgrade yourself before the world forces you to.
Aseem Goyal
Global Financial Services Executive & Advisor
Author of the forthcoming Bridging Borders: Leadership, Crises, and Reinvention from 35 Years in Eight Global Markets
Most impactful quotes:
- Volatility is no longer an interruption. It is the baseline.
- Experience becomes a liability when it is treated as instruction rather than input.
- In unstable terrain, leaders need a compass.
- The message was no longer “trust the plan.” It became “trust the process.”
- The ultimate competitive advantage is not experience alone – it is the courage to examine it.
- Leadership today demands the courage to upgrade yourself before the world forces you to.
