(LISTEN TO THE NARRATED AUDIOARTICLE VERSION)
The first time he said it, she smiled politely.
He tried again. The second time, she nodded along, already formulating her response.
His third repetition had a certain ‘edge’ in his voice.
And by the fourth, the room became very still.
I was observing a senior vice president in action. Sitting across from her direct report in a one-on-one meeting, she seemed certain about where he was headed in the conversation. After all, she’d seen this situation many times in her career, and could anticipate his concerns, the angle, the familiar hesitation. Her attention wasn’t careless. It was efficient.
Except for one pesky little fact: that wasn’t what he was saying. Not even close! What she thought she knew for sure had already shaped what she unconsciously expected to hear. When his actual position finally registered for her after four attempts, it stopped the conversation cold. She wasn’t defensive or dismissive, just visibly disoriented. It wasn’t even that she disagreed. Her certainty had filtered out important data before it had a chance to even register.
Moments like this are easy to miss in real time. Nothing dramatic happened, and no voices were raised, but something important was revealed. Her experience had shifted from being an asset to creating interference, not because she lacked skill, but because her past success had closed the loop too early.
EXPERIENCE ISN’T THE PROBLEM. FINALITY IS
We tend to speak about experience as though it automatically produces wisdom. The more years, the sharper the judgment. The longer the track record, the better the instincts.
Often, that’s true. Experience does build pattern recognition. It helps leaders move faster with less information. It allows for decisive action in situations that would overwhelm less experienced colleagues.
The trouble begins when experience becomes a filter, narrowing what leaders bother to question and what they no longer think to ask. When leaders rely too heavily on what they’ve seen before, perception can narrow rather than deepen. New information gets unconsciously screened. Signals that don’t fit the familiar narrative are discounted, not deliberately, but as a form of cognitive efficiency.
Efficiency often feels like competence, which is why it so rarely triggers self-doubt. Meetings end on time. Decisions move forward. Issues appear resolved. Leaders get recognized and reinforced for speed and clarity, not for pausing to explore what might be missing. That’s what makes the cost so hard to spot. By the time misalignment surfaces, it often shows up downstream, in disengagement, rework, or conversations that feel harder than they should.
WISDOM VERSUS CERTAINTY
One of the most important distinctions in leadership is the difference between wisdom and certainty. Wisdom holds experience lightly while it stays alert to context. It assumes there is always more to learn, especially when the situation looks and feels familiar.
Certainty closes the loop early. It sounds confident, calm, and decisive. Teams often experience it as reassuring, and leaders experience it as mastery. But certainty also has a blind spot: it resists disruption.
When the environment changes faster than our past experience can track, certainty starts to interfere with judgment. We begin mistaking confidence for accuracy, not because we’re careless, but because our internal models haven’t been updated to match the current level of change or complexity.
WHEN PATTERN RECOGNITION HARDENS
As humans, we're wired for pattern recognition from the beginning. Recognizing patterns is a powerful leadership capability that helps us to see around corners, anticipate risks, and connect dots others haven’t yet noticed. Over time, though, pattern recognition can harden into pattern entrenchment.
When that happens, we stop asking, “What’s unique or different in this case?” and start assuming we already know the answer. Curiosity gets replaced by speed. Listening moves away from trying to understand what might be different this time to listening for evidence that confirms what we already know or believe.
This pattern often shows up in leaders who have been rewarded for their judgment. Each success reinforces the belief that their reading of situations is reliable. Over time, that reliability can turn into reflex. And reflex is not the same as responsiveness.
THE COST OF OUTDATED INTERNAL MODELS
Many of us learned to lead in less chaotic or ambiguous environments than the ones we now operate in. Decision cycles were slower; hierarchies were clearer; dissent travelled differently.
But leaders are navigating something different in today’s world: more voices, greater tension, cultural challenges and polarization, and an increasing number of competing truths, all layered on top of already complex technical decisions.
When leaders don’t update their internal models, they often feel blindsided by outcomes that no longer line up with their intent. Trust begins to wobble, engagement dips, and feedback becomes harder to interpret, leaving the leader with a nagging sense that something is off, even if they can’t quite name it.
What’s often off in these moments is not capability, but curiosity and adaptability.
LEARNING AGILITY, CURIOSITY, AND TRUST
Learning agility is about staying open to questioning your own assumptions, especially when they’ve served you well. It’s the willingness to let curiosity interrupt certainty. And it’s the discipline of staying interested in what’s actually happening in this specific situation, not just what usually happens.
Research from the Center for Creative Leadership has consistently highlighted learning agility as a differentiator in leadership effectiveness, particularly in complex, changing environments. Leaders who stay curious, reflective, and willing to recalibrate are more likely to sustain trust and performance over time.
Curiosity does something else that certainty can’t: it also builds trust. When leaders stay genuinely curious, they signal respect. They create space for difference, making it safer for people to offer information that doesn’t fit the popular opinion. Over time, that shapes culture far more than decisiveness alone ever could.
WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE
When practicing curiosity, notice how quickly you form an opinion. Make a conscious choice to slow that moment down, and ask questions you don’t already have answers for (that's how you know you've asked a genuinely curious question). Check in on your intention: are you listening to learn, or listening to confirm?
In practice, it can also mean inviting your team into the process, not by asking for validation, but by creating space for challenge. Leaders who do this well tend to make better decisions, earn deeper trust, and adapt more effectively as complexity increases.
If you’ve been successful for a long time, think of this as not as a warning, but as a mirror. Experience doesn’t stop being valuable, but it does need to stay alive. The leaders who continue to grow are not the ones who abandon what’s worked, but the ones who remain curious about when it might need updating. Past success is only a liability when it goes unexamined.
YOUR COACHING CHALLENGE
1. NAME THE MOMENT: Choose one real, upcoming decision, conversation, or recurring issue where you typically rely on instinct and past experience, or a situation where you usually move quickly because it feels familiar. This might be a team discussion, a performance issue, a strategic decision, or a pattern you think you already understand.
PAUSE THE INTERNAL LOOP: Before responding, pause long enough to surface your assumptions. Ask yourself:
What am I assuming I already know about this situation?
What story am I telling myself about how this usually goes?
What real evidence do I have for my assessment?
What might I be overlooking because it feels familiar?
PRACTISE CURIOSITY OUT LOUD: In the conversation, ask a question that genuinely invites new information. For example:
What might I be missing here?
What’s different about this situation than it appears at first glance?
If we didn’t have to worry about ‘x’, what would we be doing differently?
If we slowed this down, what else should we be paying attention to?
OBSERVE THE SHIFT: Pay attention to what happens next. Notice not just the content of what you hear, but how the room responds. Does the conversation open up? Do people offer information they hadn’t shared before? Does the energy change when certainty gives way to curiosity?
REFLECT AFTERWARD: After the interaction, take a few minutes to reflect:
What new information emerged once I slowed down?
Where did my initial assumptions hold, and where didn’t they?
What did I notice about my own listening when I chose curiosity over speed?
What do I know now that I didn’t know before?
This is not about abandoning experience. It’s about keeping it alive by letting it inform your judgment without prematurely closing the loop.
If this article resonates with you, and you're interested in how Executive Coaching can help you, reach out for a free exploratory conversation with me at www.leslierohonczy.com.