Learning agility has overtaken experience as the defining leadership capability
Peter Drucker wasn’t just wise. He was prescient. “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change,” the late, great Father of Modern Management once noted. “And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”
Drucker died in 2005, when social media channels like Facebook and YouTube were in their infancy. He had no experience of artificial intelligence (AI). Yet, two decades after his death, his words encapsulate the crucial challenge of our time: to build a generational learning mechanism in our people. In periods of exponential change, experience does not merely lose value. It becomes an active liability if it locks leaders into outdated mental models. What matters now is not what leaders know, but how fast they can update what they know.
I was struck by the comments of Cisco executive vice president Francine Katsoudas. Katsoudas, also Cisco’s chief people, policy and purpose officer, describes her brief as “bringing together people and technology to drive positive impact for the company and global communities.” Channeling Drucker’s classic wisdom, Katsoudas maintains that learning agility holds the keys to the future. “I think it’s everything,” she says, warning that experience makes a poor substitute for a discovery mindset. She harkens back to when her current CEO was going through the CEO selection process, and the other two candidates were much more experienced. “Over the 11-month process he demonstrated what his tenure would look like – because of this ability to constantly learn, reframe and think about things differently.” This learning agility proved decisive in his appointment.
Faster learners are rightly in heavy demand. Technology is racing ahead of the organizational structures required to harness it. AI is not a future disruptor – it is a present test of leadership relevance. And, like all tests, it is exposing who has been preparing, and who has not. Moreover, the foundations of organizations require constant updates to meet the ethical challenges of the future. Katsoudas says that vulnerability – acknowledging that we lack all the answers – is an essential leadership quality amid technological disruption. Innovation and AI present extraordinary opportunities. But ethical leadership and enduring principles remain paramount.
The discovery mindset can be paradoxical: it demands a rare ability to acquire new knowledge quickly, while simultaneously unwinding many of the things we thought we knew. “It’s important for all of us to unlearn,” said Katsoudas. Yet it requires leaders to let go of ideas that once made them successful – and that can feel like a loss of identity and authority.
The velocity of change is unforgiving. Experience is no match for an open mind and a willingness to embrace new ideas; to learn – and unlearn – at pace. The leaders who thrive will not be those with the longest résumés, but those with the shortest learning cycles. The question is no longer whether leaders can adapt – but whether they are willing to let go of the very experience that once defined them. It is a query that recalls Drucker’s forward thinking. “The best way to predict the future,” he once said, “is to create it.”
Dr Sharmla Chetty is chief executive of Duke Corporate Education. She works with global organizations on leadership, learning and future-ready capability
