How do you grow as a leader? Most advice boils down to two things: build more skills, and give it time.
Both are true. But neither is the real bottleneck.
The people who grow faster into leadership roles aren't necessarily the most skilled or the most tenured. They're the ones who hold the most knowledge and context in their heads. They know how the business works, how decisions get made, where the risks are, and why things are the way they are. That context is what makes them effective, because they can anticipate problems before they happen, make better decisions with less information, and connect dots across teams that others can't see. It's also what makes them trusted, because people learn to rely on someone who consistently sees the bigger picture.
So the real question isn't “how do I grow?” It's “how do I grow my knowledge faster?”
The Opportunity Gate
The only source of knowledge is experience. - Albert Einstein
This is the part most people miss. We assume knowledge comes with years on the job, or that you need a certain skill level before you can access certain information. But that's not how it works in practice.
Knowledge comes from exposure. You learn how the business works by being in the room when business decisions are made. You learn how to handle a crisis by being part of one. You learn how cross-functional alignment works by doing it, not by reading about it.
The gate isn't skill. The gate isn't time. The gate is opportunity. And the good news is that opportunity is something you can actively seek out and create for yourself.
Why This Matters
If growth is gated on opportunity, it changes how you think about your own development:
- Stop Waiting: Instead of waiting to be “ready” or waiting for someone to hand you a chance, you go find one.
- Breadth Over Depth: Deep expertise matters, but breadth of context is what gets you to the next level. Leaders need to see the full picture.
- Think About Access: Who do you need to know? What meetings should you be in? What problems can you get close to? These aren't political questions. They're growth questions.
Finding Opportunity
Here are some concrete ways to increase your exposure and build the knowledge that actually accelerates your growth:
- Cross-Functional Work: Any time there's a project that spans multiple teams or functions, raise your hand. These are the richest learning environments because you're exposed to how other parts of the business think and operate. These tend to build broad context faster than staying heads-down in your own lane.
- New Meetings: Ask your manager or a peer if you can observe a leadership meeting, a sales review, a planning session, anything outside your usual scope. You don't need to contribute. Just listening builds context you can't get any other way.
- Unglamorous Problems: Unglamorous problems are often the most cross-cutting and context-rich. Incident response, compliance work, migration projects, budget reviews. These expose you to how the system actually works, not just your corner of it.
- Early Relationships: Set aside time each week to connect with people in different functions. Not networking for networking's sake, but genuine curiosity about what they do and how they think. When opportunities come up, you'll hear about them because people know you and think of you.
- Stretch Assignments: Don't wait to be offered. Tell your manager you're looking for opportunities to grow your context. Be specific: “I'd like to be involved in the next planning cycle” or “Can I shadow you in the leadership review?” Most managers will say yes if you ask directly.
- Shadowing Leaders: This is one of the most underused growth tactics out there. Spending even a few hours observing how a leader in product, sales, or operations works gives you a mental model you'll use for years.
- Teaching: Mentoring, giving talks, writing things down. Teaching forces you to organize your knowledge and often reveals gaps you didn't know you had. It also puts you in contact with people who have different contexts than yours, which expands your own.
The Compounding Effect
The thing about opportunity-driven growth is that it compounds. The more context you hold, the more people come to you for input. The more input you give, the more you're included in decisions. The more decisions you're part of, the more context you gain. It becomes a flywheel.
This is what makes some careers feel like they have real momentum. It's not luck. It's the steady accumulation of context through deliberately seeking opportunities.
Start Small
You don't need to overhaul your career to put this into practice. Pick one thing from the list above and try it next week. Volunteer for that cross-functional project. Ask to sit in on that meeting. Reach out to that person in another function.
Growth doesn't require more time or more skill. It requires more opportunity. And opportunity is something you can go get.
What opportunities have you found that accelerated your growth the most?