Old(er)

Leaders get old.

Which is hardly new news.

Everyone gets old(er).

And everyone changes with age. And not always for the better.

For instance, a book chapter I read this week reviewing “lifespan literature” noted that “relatively old leaders (i.e. 60 plus)” experience a comparative decline in openness to experience — open-mindedness, imagination, and curiosity. Persons in this age range also experience, comparatively, a decline in fluid intelligence — rapid information processing, novel problem-solving, and reasoning. [1]

Now, a couple things to point out here. First, this book chapter was published 12 whole years ago — making it soo ancient, right? Second, the lead author, Zacher, has an almost-cool last name but is obviously no relation to yours truly — as I would never (these days) label leaders who are “60 plus” as “old” and not even “relatively old.”

Because these days I’m fewer than five days away from dipping a toe into the decade just south of 60…which makes me too old to remember when I stopped believing folks in their 60s were, well, old.

Admittedly, I’ve been thinking much about old(er) of late, even as I try not to think about it at all. Oxymoronic? Yes. Plain moronic? Possibly. But then, birthdays ending in “0” tend to have interesting impact on one’s psychology, especially when said birthday puts one into the age group the AARP is “dedicated to,” as stated on its web site. [2]

Birthdays at midlife (should) make one extra-reflective, to be sure. And to be sure, midlife is a misnomer. For none of us knows precisely when we surpass the halfway mark of days we’re allotted on Earth.

Cases in point: For my mother’s father, midlife was age 52.5; for my father’s father, midlife was 34.

My maternal grandfather (whom I’ve written about previously) had a long runway before takeoff, so to speak. Within the same senior care facility, he was in independent living for several years before moving to assisted living before moving to nursing care — where he only spent one day before he passed.

My paternal grandfather had a short runway…none at all, rather. Although very active and with no known health issues, he passed unexpectedly from a cardiac incident, while on an awards trip (as a top-10 producer nationally for his company) in the Caribbean. And though his passing seemed very unfair at the time, it does not seem entirely unfitting thirty years later — as he often said: “Plan like you’ll live forever, and live like you’ll die tomorrow.”

Obviously, we don’t know when our “tomorrow” will come.

And thankfully, we don’t know when our “tomorrow” will come. (Imagine if we did…how such knowledge would make us feel? Sullen and anxious are two words that quickly come to mind.)

In fact, I’m convinced that our not knowing is fuel for our keep going. The “nothing’s-promised” nature of our future should, in the moment, heighten both our sense of gratitude and our sense of urgency. The today-is-a-gift-that’s-why-it’s-called-the-“present” mentality should shape how we plan, how we live, how we lead.

That one more day of life is also one less day of life is a reality, an understanding, that should mean something to us.

Yes, that means we get old(er). But also, yes, that means how we get old(er) matters.

Remember, everyone changes with age. And not always for the worse.

In the aforementioned chapter, Zacher and colleagues noted that those same “relatively old” leaders who experience a comparative decline in fluid intelligence also experience a comparative increase in crystalized intelligence — experiential knowledge and contextual wisdom. The authors further noted that conscientiousness and emotional stability can grow as we grow old(er).

This means that leaders with a few decades on them can access strengths to compensate for the loss of capacities that flourished only when they were young(er).

Consequently, for organizations and teams and families, the problem is not when leaders get old.

The problem is when leading does.

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[1] Zacher, H., Clark, M., Anderson, E. C., & Ayoko, O. B. (2014). A lifespan perspective on leadership. In Aging workers and the employee-employer relationship (pp. 87–104). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

[2] Fun/obscure fact: Did you know that anyone 18 or older can snag an AARP membership…and what’s more, for just $15 for the first year (with automatic renewal, of course!)? Our sophomore in college will be ecstatic to learn this.

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Old(er) was originally published in Horizon Performance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.