image by James Cronin
Young leaders are often frustrated because so many job requirements start with this:
‘Must have 5 years experience…’
I know I’ve been frustrated by that in the past.
How can I get experience if you’re not willing to give me a shot?!?
Organizations hold up “experience” as the roadblock. It doesn’t matter what your remaining qualifications are, what you’ve done, where you’ve been, how you think, or how you work…if you don’t have experience, you are relegated to the bottom of the stack of resumes.
A word to older leaders
Let me speak to older leaders for a moment: You don’t really believe that experience should be the trump card. You just wave that banner so that you don’t have to take a risk on unproven leaders. I get it. There’s no real way to measure if a young, wet-behind-the-ears leader is going to be successful. That is, if you think that past success is the predominant determinant of future success. But I don’t. And I don’t believe you do, either.
Experience teaches us a lot. But like my coach used to tell me
Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.
I’d rather use “ambition” as the net that catches would-be employees. Ambition is a stronger quality in a leader. Great ambition leads to innovative, hard-working, growing, changing, productive, magnetic, dynamic leaders that propel your entire team forward.
Experience without ambition leads to grumpy, lazy, complaining, limiting, small-minded, controlling leaders.
Experience may give you context, wisdom, and insight. But it guarantees no drive or motivation. I’d much rather hire and work with an ambitious leader than one that simply has experience. Wouldn’t you?
I’ve been able to get things accomplished in my current position at Grace because I have ambition…not because I have experience. And even though I now have a few years experience, it’s ambition that continues to drives my production.
Ambition: an earnest desire for some type of achievement; drive, force.
Ambition will get you further down the road than experience alone ever will.
Experience isn’t worthless…it’s just not a good measuring tool. Because it gives you no real context as to how motivated the person will be to grow, improve, work harder than expected, and fight for their long-term health and that of your organization.
Next time you get a resume on your desk that represents less than 5 years of experience, don’t dismiss it. That experience isn’t as important as you think.
Is it time for you to take a risk on an unproven leader?
