Have I actually grown?

Here is a question that pops up once you are senior enough: Have I actually grown, or have I just gotten older at this?

You go to check, and you reach for the rulers you have always used: title, budget, years in leadership positions. But while every one of them still exists, they have stopped meaning the same thing. You could have a bigger title and be worse at your actual role.

It’s why many leaders are left holding rulers that they no longer read, trying to answer a question that matters more the higher they go.

If your results can’t show you whether you’ve actually grown, the only place left to look is how you handle not knowing.

How you hold what you know

Early on, a leadership role rewards having the right answer. You get known for fixing a certain kind of problem. So when something unfamiliar lands, your natural move is to treat it like a version of what you already know and reach for what worked before.

But these days, problems show up that don’t match anything at all. Like entering a new market while AI is rewriting your business underneath you.

You can tell you’ve grown when you don’t feel the same pull to force a familiar solution onto it. When you can stay with not knowing for a while, and not rush to lock something in place.

A few years ago, that not-knowing might have been unbearable. But maybe now you can sit with it long enough to actually see the problem. And realize how that patience does more than a fast answer.

How fast you come back

If patience is a new ruler for how you handle work, the second ruler measures how you handle yourself.

You will still get thrown, no matter how seasoned you become. The markets lurch, quarters fall apart, and you’ll feel the same jolt you always did. You’ll still feel the pull to grip harder and take control of everything at once. This kind of jolt never goes away.

The real measure of growth here is how long your initial reaction controls you.

What changes is how many decisions you make while in that panicked state.

A few years ago, that stress might have led to a week of frantic calls you later regretted. Now, you catch yourself faster and stop before acting on it.

Few people, if any, will see this from the outside. They just see that you didn’t make a panicked call, so it looks like nothing happened. That is often what real development looks like on paper: the bad decisions you no longer make.

The thread running through all of it

Most of the established ways to measure your growth as a leader are less effective as you gain experience. They are now found in things you can’t put a number on.

How you hold what you don’t know. How fast you find your feet. Whether the people around you need you less than they did.

As you get more senior, you simply outgrow the metrics you used to rely on. You don’t get a better ruler in exchange for your years of experience. You get harder questions and a type of growth that doesn’t show up on the instruments you were handed.

What’s one thing you handle differently now than you did a few years ago?

— Govert

First published in the Professional Closeness Digest on 20 August 2026.