Take What Works: Building Fluency Through Lived Experience

Why peer wisdom outperforms theory and how real leadership fluency grows in community. 

Leaders rarely transform because of a single book, model, or curriculum. The real shifts happen in the experiences. The late-night debrief after a meeting that went sideways. The text thread where a trusted peer says, “Here’s what actually works.” The quiet exchange in a corner of the conference room where someone finally names the thing everyone else is skirting. 

Across sectors and industries, that is the pattern.

Leaders grow when their lived experience meets someone else's lived strategy. Not imitation. Not replication. A transfer of insight shaped by context, pressure, identity, and reality. That is what I call taking what works. Taking what works is not about copying another leader's playbook. Copying ignores context. Taking what works means extracting what sits underneath the move. What principle drove it? What conditions made it possible? What constraints shaped it? Leaders who do this well become fluent in patterns.

The research backs this up. Millennial leaders prefer development that is relational, experiential, and grounded in real work. They want learning that aligns with values, identity, and actual conditions rather than abstract, one-size-fits-all frameworks. Women leaders benefit significantly from professional networks that expand access, cultivate partnerships, and share knowledge. Intersectional leadership studies show that leaders navigating complex identities make meaning collectively. Peer communities strengthen their ability to interpret power, culture, and systems. 

This is not accidental. It reflects how adults actually learn to lead. We deepen our judgment when we pressure-test our thinking with people who understand the stakes. We sharpen our approach when someone names the thing we have been circling but not confronting. We refine our decisions when we hear how a similar challenge played out in a different system. Borrowed insight accelerates fluency. 

The environments I have led in taught me that formal leadership development often underestimates this. It treats learning as an individual act. It rewards independence and self-reliance. It reinforces the idea that leaders should already know, already have the answers, already be fully formed. The result is isolation. Leaders are surrounded by people, yet have very few places where they can think out loud without being evaluated. 

Taking what works interrupts that isolation. It gives leaders a space to test, question, and translate. It reveals blind spots early, surfaces assumptions quickly, and exposes leaders to choices they would not have considered on their own. Most importantly, it honors lived experience as equal to research and theory. In many cases, more relevant. 

The strongest peer spaces operate with three commitments. First, they take confidentiality seriously. Leaders cannot think freely without trust. Second, they bring rigor. Conversations are not a venting circle. They are structured, intentional, and anchored by real data and real stakes. Third, they value difference. Cross-sector, cross-identity, cross-discipline dialogue produces better insight because the pattern becomes clearer when you see it across contexts. 

I have spent my career in rooms where leaders are doing the hard work of making meaning. They are translating strategy across cultures, industries, and communities. They are balancing business needs with the lived experiences of the people they serve and employ. Their wisdom is rarely captured in a textbook, but it is what moves organizations. Borrowing better is a development method. It is an infrastructure for modern leadership. It creates conditions where fluency grows through collective intelligence, not individual performance. It strengthens judgment. It expands the mental models leaders use to navigate complexity. It widens the aperture of what is possible. 

Ricka’ Berry, MBA, is a cross-sector strategist and executive leader with over 20 years of experience across corporate, nonprofit, and social impact environments. She is the Founder of genius grace, where she works with leaders and organizations on strategy, leadership development, and systems design grounded in research and lived experience.