Challenging your narrative on the right age for leadership

I found myself taken aback this week while in two separate discussions, the topic of age came up. In the first, my client was claiming to be “too old” for advancement and movement while in her early 50’s. The second scenario was a client in her 30’s, told to be “too young” to understand many of the nuances that come with leading over the years. It made me wonder, who gets to decide what age is appropriate for leadership and advancement? Is there a written rule or published law that says only between certain ages that you get to develop and outside of that you simply have to settle? Why are we outsourcing that decision to someone outside ourselves?

These stories we hold about age, no matter whether it’s too young or too old are all unconscious biases. Somehow we’ve created a story in our mind about what things “should” look like and when they don’t, we are telling ourselves that something is wrong. They are formed over time, likely by outside influences, so how do we challenge that?

The first step is awareness. In the case of both of my clients, both were told by others in the work environment that they were either too young or too old. At some point, they started giving meaning to the comments and built a narrative in their mind about it. Unfortunately, the result of keeping those narratives can turn into things like:

  • Staying in unhealthy environments because you no longer believe other options are available to you
  • Seeing yourself as uniquely disadvantaged, thereby holding yourself back from pursuing advancement opportunities
  • Sabotaging your own performance with the belief that it won’t matter anyway

It’s only when you notice what the running soundtrack is that you can make a decision on whether or not you want to keep playing it. Is it helping you? Do you want to believe it? What do you want to believe instead?

I have seen teens create their own businesses. I have also seen people who change their careers well into their 60’s. When you open my mind to deciding what you are capable of and don’t let the outside world decide for you, it creates possibility for just about anything. 

So what happens when you make a conscious decision to no longer believe the story and yet, the topic keeps coming up at work? It’s important to educate people around you, but not from a place of defensiveness and instead from a place of empathy. Believing that there is an appropriate age for leadership is unconscious bias at work. Someone that is comparing your age to an unwritten rule is likely unaware of their own unconscious bias. If you are comfortable, I would ask them:

I’ve noticed that you mentioned my age three times in this discussion. Have you noticed that? I wonder where your beliefs about the appropriate age for a leader were formed and why? Have you ever questioned them? 

And if necessary, you can even take it a little further to say: Are you aware that this is an unconscious bias and could be perceived by someone as ageism? 

We are all humans with human brains, all of which hold bias, against ourselves and others. It’s the constant system of categorizing and labeling so our brain can work more efficiently. Part of our leadership journey is to challenge those labels and categories we assigned unconsciously in order to make sure we still agree. This requires setting aside the time necessary to explore your thinking. Doing so with a coach helps uncover the stories that you don’t even realize exist because you’ve told them so many times, they’ve simply become your truth.

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