How Your Age Influences Your Leadership Skills

Aging is a process that we must all navigate through in life. Even though its the only challenge that we must all face - it often feels like a terribly personal one, and is often a challenge that we face alone. As we grow older, our leadership skills change, but do they improve or worsen?

How getting older reduces our leadership skills.

Firstly I shall look at the side of the debate that puts forward the notion that as we grow older, our ability to lead others actually deteriorates. I investigate possible reasons below.

1. Our control over children deteriorates as we are seen as out-of-touch

2. Our authority in public becomes questioned for the first time, as issues of our cognitive ability and other physical consequences start to affect the perceived quality of our judgement.

3. As memory starts to slowly deteriorate, we become less on the ball and may fall behind in fast moving areas of life, resulting in us not being seen as a leader.

How aging increases our leadership skills.

1. Our age makes us automatically seem experienced and wise in the workplace. We have a better understanding of what can go wrong, and how plans can fall apart - so our guidance is appreciated by those who are attempting a project for the first time.

2. Our appearance causes others to take us seriously. While youthful individuals may have all the energy in the world, they struggle getting places because people simply don't have the faith in them. Older people receive respect that reduces this risk.

3. Long-standing relationships with others mean that we have far more influence over these people than young strangers could ever have, (when taking love out of the equation anyway!).

4. Knowing thoroughly how the world works, and having experience in so many parts of life means that we become more confident as we age, and in many cases become tougher as a result of life's toils. It’s a statistical fact that older people are more likely to fight back against muggers than young people are. I think this demonstrates more clearly than anything else - that older people have a great spirit that potential 'followers' see in them too.

5. As life starts to slow down, we are able to see the big picture of life. For teenagers, life all too often is simply about getting through school as fast as possible and drinking as much as they can. It's fast paced and many individuals lose sight of what matters in life. With this perspective in mind, older people have a greater ability of appealing to the good side of people, and often take the time to do nice things that wins colleagues and subordinate's respect.

I hope these thoughts help you make your own mind up about whether Leadership is something that comes naturally with age or not, and whether older people actually have an advantage over younger individuals when it comes to having leadership potential. In my opinion, it does. And this gives me just another reason to smile on my birthday. Add your thoughts below by leaving a comment!