Learn what qualifies as leadership experience and how to gain it. Discover how to identify, develop, and communicate your leadership experience effectively.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Mon 8th December 2025
Leadership experience encompasses the range of situations where individuals have influenced, guided, or directed others toward objectives—developing the skills, judgment, and capabilities that enable effective leadership. Research from the Center for Creative Leadership indicates that approximately 70% of leadership development occurs through challenging experiences rather than formal training. Understanding what constitutes meaningful leadership experience, how to gain it, and how to communicate it effectively shapes career trajectories and leadership capability.
This guide explores what qualifies as leadership experience and how to build and articulate it effectively.
Leadership experience refers to the accumulated situations where an individual has practised leadership—influencing others, making decisions affecting groups, taking responsibility for outcomes, and guiding collective effort toward goals. This experience builds the capabilities, judgment, and credibility that enable future leadership effectiveness.
Forms of leadership experience:
Formal leadership: Positions with designated leadership authority—manager, director, team lead, project manager.
Informal leadership: Influence exercised without positional authority—leading initiatives, mentoring peers, coordinating efforts.
Project leadership: Temporary leadership of specific projects or initiatives.
Community leadership: Leadership in volunteer organisations, community groups, or non-profit contexts.
Crisis leadership: Leading during difficult situations requiring rapid decision-making and adaptation.
Developmental experiences: Stretch assignments, new challenges, and unfamiliar situations that build capability.
Not all experiences contribute equally to leadership development. Research identifies specific experience types that build leadership capability most effectively.
High-impact developmental experiences:
1. Scope increases: Taking responsibility for larger teams, budgets, or functions than previously managed.
2. Turnaround situations: Leading recovery efforts in struggling teams, projects, or businesses.
3. Start-up challenges: Building teams, products, or functions from inception.
4. Cross-functional projects: Leading initiatives spanning multiple departments or disciplines.
5. International assignments: Working across cultures and geographies.
6. High-visibility projects: Leading work with significant organisational attention and consequences.
7. Hardship experiences: Navigating personal or professional difficulties that build resilience.
| Experience Type | Primary Development Value |
|---|---|
| Scope increase | Scale, delegation, strategy |
| Turnaround | Problem-solving, resilience |
| Start-up | Building, innovation |
| Cross-functional | Collaboration, influence |
| International | Adaptability, cultural intelligence |
| High-visibility | Performance under pressure |
| Hardship | Resilience, perspective |
Building leadership experience before formal leadership roles requires intentional effort and strategic opportunity seeking.
Strategies for gaining early experience:
1. Volunteer for projects: Seek opportunities to lead initiatives, even small ones. Every project offers leadership practice.
2. Take initiative: Identify problems needing solutions and propose leading the response.
3. Mentor others: Supporting newer colleagues develops coaching and development skills.
4. Join committees: Participating in and eventually leading workplace or community committees builds experience.
5. Lead in community: Volunteer organisations, sports teams, and community groups offer leadership practice.
6. Request stretch assignments: Ask managers for challenging work beyond current responsibilities.
7. Document everything: Track leadership experiences for future reference and reflection.
Where to find early leadership opportunities:
Leadership experience doesn't require formal authority. Many valuable experiences occur without positional titles.
Leadership without title examples:
Project coordination: Organising group efforts toward shared objectives, even without manager designation.
Peer mentoring: Guiding colleagues through challenges and development.
Initiative championing: Proposing and driving new ideas or improvements.
Crisis response: Stepping up during challenges when leadership is needed.
Team facilitation: Helping groups work together effectively.
Knowledge leadership: Being the go-to expert others rely upon for guidance.
Change advocacy: Championing needed changes and influencing adoption.
How to identify your informal leadership:
Ask yourself:
Leadership experience spans multiple categories, each contributing distinct value.
People leadership: Direct responsibility for others' work, development, and performance.
Project leadership: Leading time-limited initiatives toward defined outcomes.
Strategic leadership: Contributing to direction-setting and long-term planning.
Operational leadership: Ensuring ongoing functions operate effectively.
Technical leadership: Leading through expertise rather than positional authority.
| Category | Focus | Example Activities |
|---|---|---|
| People | Team members | Managing, developing, evaluating |
| Project | Initiatives | Planning, coordinating, delivering |
| Strategic | Direction | Planning, visioning, deciding |
| Operational | Functions | Running, improving, optimising |
| Technical | Expertise | Guiding, mentoring, deciding |
Military leadership experience provides distinctive preparation for business leadership, though translation requires intentional effort.
Military leadership strengths:
Translation considerations:
Military hierarchies differ from business contexts. Command authority doesn't translate directly to influence-based business leadership. Military leaders moving to business must adapt communication styles, build relationships differently, and operate with less clear authority.
Effective translation:
Effectively communicating leadership experience requires strategic framing and specific examples.
CV leadership experience principles:
1. Lead with impact: Start bullet points with outcomes achieved, not responsibilities held.
2. Quantify where possible: Use numbers to demonstrate scale and results.
3. Use leadership language: Choose verbs demonstrating leadership action—led, directed, championed, transformed.
4. Include scope indicators: Specify team sizes, budget amounts, project scales.
5. Highlight challenges overcome: Demonstrate capability through difficulty navigated.
6. Show progression: Illustrate growth in leadership responsibility over time.
Weak versus strong descriptions:
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Managed a team | Led 12-person team delivering £2M project on time and 15% under budget |
| Responsible for projects | Directed cross-functional initiative reducing customer complaints by 40% |
| Worked on strategy | Championed market expansion strategy, resulting in 25% revenue growth |
| Supervised employees | Developed three direct reports, two of whom received promotions |
Interviews require structured, compelling communication of leadership experience.
Interview preparation:
1. Identify key stories: Select 4-6 leadership experiences that demonstrate different capabilities.
2. Use the STAR method: Structure stories around Situation, Task, Action, Result.
3. Prepare for depth: Anticipate follow-up questions about decisions, challenges, and learning.
4. Include failures: Prepare to discuss setbacks and what you learned from them.
5. Connect to role: Link experiences to requirements of the position sought.
Common leadership experience questions:
STAR response structure:
Situation: Set context briefly Task: Clarify your responsibility Action: Describe what you specifically did Result: Quantify outcome and learning
Understanding how organisations evaluate leadership experience helps in preparation and development.
Assessment dimensions:
Scope and scale: Size of teams, budgets, and responsibilities managed.
Complexity: Difficulty of challenges faced and navigated.
Impact: Results achieved and value created.
Progression: Growth in responsibility and capability over time.
Breadth: Variety of leadership contexts and situations.
Depth: Level of challenge and learning extracted from experiences.
Consistency: Pattern of effective leadership across situations.
Assessment methods:
| Method | What It Assesses |
|---|---|
| CV review | Scope, progression, results |
| Interviews | Decision-making, learning, communication |
| References | Consistency, impact on others |
| Assessments | Capability, potential |
| Simulations | Behaviour under challenge |
Senior leadership positions typically require specific experience portfolios.
Common senior role requirements:
Executive roles:
Director roles:
Experience gaps for senior roles:
Many aspiring senior leaders have gaps in their experience portfolios. Common gaps include:
Addressing gaps:
Experience alone doesn't guarantee development. Intentional reflection and learning extraction determine how much capability experiences build.
Maximising learning from experience:
1. Reflect systematically: After significant experiences, examine what happened, why, and what you'd do differently.
2. Seek feedback: Ask others involved how they perceived your leadership.
3. Document insights: Record lessons for future reference and pattern recognition.
4. Identify patterns: Look for recurring themes across experiences.
5. Apply learning: Deliberately apply insights to new situations.
6. Discuss with mentors: Process experiences with those who can offer perspective.
7. Challenge assumptions: Question whether your interpretation of experience is accurate.
Reflection questions:
Leaders who reflect on experience discover common lessons that transcend specific situations.
Universal leadership lessons:
People are central: Regardless of strategy or resources, leadership effectiveness depends on people.
Communication matters enormously: Most leadership challenges involve communication issues.
Context changes everything: What worked before may not work now.
Self-awareness enables growth: Understanding yourself enables better leadership.
Relationships precede results: Building relationships creates conditions for achievement.
Failure teaches profoundly: Setbacks often provide greater learning than successes.
Patience proves essential: Meaningful change takes longer than expected.
Leadership experience encompasses situations where individuals have influenced, guided, or directed others toward objectives. It includes formal positions (manager, director), informal leadership (leading projects, mentoring peers), community leadership (volunteer organisations), and developmental experiences (stretch assignments, challenges). This experience builds the capabilities, judgment, and credibility enabling effective leadership.
Leadership experience on a CV includes: managing teams or individuals, leading projects or initiatives, making decisions affecting groups, mentoring or developing others, representing teams to stakeholders, driving change or improvement, coordinating cross-functional efforts, and taking responsibility for outcomes. Both formal roles with authority and informal leadership without title qualify.
Gain leadership experience without a management role by: volunteering for project leadership, taking initiative on improvements, mentoring colleagues, joining and eventually leading committees, participating in cross-functional initiatives, leading in community or volunteer organisations, championing change efforts, and seeking stretch assignments. Document these experiences for future reference.
Employers assess: scope and scale of responsibilities (team size, budget), complexity of challenges navigated, measurable impact and results achieved, progression in responsibility over time, breadth across different contexts, depth of learning from experiences, and consistency of effective leadership. Senior roles particularly value P&L responsibility, transformation experience, and cross-functional leadership.
Describe leadership experience using the STAR method: Situation (brief context), Task (your responsibility), Action (what you specifically did), Result (quantified outcome). Lead with impact rather than responsibilities. Prepare 4-6 stories demonstrating different capabilities. Include a failure story showing learning. Connect experiences to the role requirements.
Yes, volunteer experience provides legitimate leadership experience. Leading volunteer teams, organising community initiatives, serving on non-profit boards, and coordinating volunteer efforts all develop leadership capabilities. Employers increasingly value volunteer leadership for demonstrating initiative, community commitment, and leadership outside professional contexts.
Senior roles typically require 10-15 years of progressive leadership experience, including: direct people management, P&L or budget responsibility, strategy development, transformation or change leadership, cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder management, and demonstrated results. Specific requirements vary by organisation and role. Gaps can be addressed through targeted development experiences.
Leadership experience forms the foundation upon which leadership capability is built. The situations navigated, decisions made, people influenced, and outcomes achieved create the capabilities and credibility that enable future leadership effectiveness. Understanding what constitutes meaningful experience, actively seeking developmental opportunities, and extracting maximum learning from each experience accelerates leadership development.
The most impactful experiences often come from challenge and stretch—new situations, difficult circumstances, unfamiliar contexts. Comfort rarely builds capability. Leaders who deliberately seek challenging experiences and reflect systematically on their lessons develop faster than those who accumulate years without intentional learning.
Like craftsmen who develop skill through practice, leaders develop capability through experience. But experience alone is insufficient; reflection and learning extraction transform experience into capability.
Seek challenging experiences. Reflect systematically. Learn continuously. Build the foundation that enables leadership excellence.
Gain the experience. Extract the learning. Lead more effectively.