Is Leadership Experience Becoming a Liability?

Most leaders think they’re navigating another wave of disruption. Sara Loncka argues we’re in something far more unsettling: discontinuity. The old assumptions don’t just need tweaking—they’ve stopped working altogether. Past experience, the thing leaders have spent entire careers building confidence around, is suddenly less reliable as a guide for the future. And that’s creating a strange kind of friction: teams keep pushing harder with familiar playbooks while the terrain underneath them quietly changes shape.In this conversation, David Rice and Sara unpack why experienced leaders are often the most vulnerable in moments like this, how organizations get trapped by expertise, and why the future of strategy looks less like certainty and more like continuous inquiry. They also explore collective intelligence, learning agility, and why redesigning work now requires leaders to think more like designers than operators.Related Links:Join the People Managing People CommunitySubscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcastsConnect with Sara on LinkedInVisit Experience Institute and NYU SternSupport the show