Leadership in Action: Leadership Is Change - Or Is It?

Learning from Difficulties

But there are other—and perhaps more readily applicable—lessons to be found in the differences between the research findings from the 1980s and 1990s. Two of the most significant changes that emerged in the 1990s results were the diminished role of challenging assignments as experiences that help executives develop and the increasing incidence of lessons learned from hardships. In the 1980s research, participants reported that 42 percent of the lessons they learned were gained from working on challenging assignments and 20 percent of their lessons resulted from hardships. In the 1990s study, the percentage of lessons from hardships grew significantly, to 34 percent, and the percentage from challenging assignments dropped ...