Why Successful Leaders Must Learn, Unlearn and Relearn

Experience is one of a leader’s greatest strengths. Years spent mastering a function, understanding an industry and navigating complex decisions build judgement and perspective. But experience also creates patterns. Leaders develop assumptions about what works and how decisions should be made. As the business environment changes, some of those assumptions must change too.

Artificial intelligence is redefining industries, business models are evolving rapidly, and geopolitical shifts are reshaping markets. For senior executives, the challenge is not simply to keep learning, but to recognise what must be unlearned, relearned and seen differently. Unlearning means questioning familiar approaches, challenging established assumptions and staying open to perspectives beyond one’s own.

The Post Graduate Programme in Management for Senior Executives (PGP MAX) at the Indian School of Business (ISB) is designed for this stage of the leadership journey. The 15-month modular programme, for professionals with 10+ years of work experience, enables participants to continue in their professional roles while periodically stepping away from familiar routines to learn, reflect and reassess how they approach leadership. Across 12 immersive learning weeks, including an international immersion, participants engage with new frameworks, perspectives and leadership challenges while continuing to apply their learning within their organisations.

Learning Beyond What You Already Know

Experience teaches leaders what has worked before. Senior leadership requires them to recognise when those answers may no longer be enough. As responsibilities expand, leaders need to move beyond the perspective of a single function and understand how decisions connect across the enterprise.

PGP MAX approaches management through eight interconnected themes, including Organisation and Fulfilment, Innovation and Change, Leadership and Decision-Making, and Digital Business Transformation. This cross-functional approach encourages participants to examine business challenges from multiple perspectives rather than rely only on the expertise that has defined their careers.

The objective is not to replace experience, but to expand the way it is applied. The modular format also allows participants to take ideas from the classroom back into their organisations between learning weeks, creating a continuous cycle of learning, application and reflection.

Unlearning Through Practice

Some assumptions become visible only when they are tested. Senior executives rarely encounter neatly defined problems with predetermined solutions. They make decisions amid uncertainty, balance competing interests, and often work with incomplete information. PGP MAX combines case studies, simulations, collaborative discussions and immersive learning experiences where familiar approaches may not always provide the answer.

One such component is Leadership Action Week, which includes Build 48, an intensive 48-hour innovation sprint in which participants work on a live business challenge under tight deadlines. The value lies in observing how decisions are made: which assumptions surface first, which perspectives are overlooked and how differently others interpret the same situation.

Learning from Global Perspectives

The need to question familiar assumptions becomes sharper when leadership extends beyond one market. An approach that works in India may need to be adapted elsewhere. Customer expectations differ. Regulatory environments change. Organisational cultures vary. Global leadership, therefore, demands more than international exposure. It requires the ability to understand context and adapt judgement accordingly.

PGP MAX exposes participants to global perspectives through ISB’s resident and visiting faculty and its international immersion. For senior Indian leaders, this creates an opportunity to test assumptions developed in India against perspectives from other markets and understand which principles travel, which need adaptation and which require reconsideration.

Learning from Leaders Unlike Yourself

Peers can be one of the strongest sources of unlearning. PGP MAX brings together professionals from diverse industries, functions and organisational backgrounds. An entrepreneur may think about risk differently from someone in a large corporation. A technology executive may interpret transformation differently from a leader in manufacturing or financial services. These differences challenge assumptions and broaden perspective.

Poornima Bushpala, Director of North America Information Risk Management, Manulife (PGP MAX Co '19), says, "The rich global network of highly qualified professionals as peers, coupled with continuous learning and growth opportunities while pursuing the PGP MAX, enabled me to participate in international case competitions such as 'Hult Prize' and gain exposure to the startup community. This helped in developing entrepreneurial skills, which are considered key leadership attributes for senior executives."

Unlearning How You Lead

Perhaps the hardest assumptions to question are those that leaders hold about themselves. Years of success can reinforce particular ways of making decisions, managing teams and exercising influence. Yet a leadership style that works while running a function may need to evolve as responsibilities extend across an enterprise. Through personal leadership development and executive coaching, PGP MAX creates opportunities for participants to reflect on their leadership patterns and consider where those approaches may need to evolve.

For Kulbhushan Singh Chib, Director of Operations, Indian Army (PGP MAX Co '24), "ISB PGP MAX helped me navigate the transition from a structured military career to a dynamic corporate world with clarity and confidence. The curriculum provided a strong foundation across finance, strategy, leadership, and innovation. The cohort diversity and programme intensity sharpened my ability to collaborate, lead, and make informed decisions. PGP MAX was a transformation preparing me for agile, purposeful business leadership."

Leadership is a Continuous Process of Learning

The nature of learning changes as careers progress. Early in a career, it is often about building expertise. Later, it becomes about understanding how different parts of a business connect. At senior levels, it increasingly requires leaders to examine the assumptions behind their own judgement. That is where unlearning matters. It allows leaders to retain the value of experience without becoming constrained by it.

For senior executives navigating complex organisations and global markets, growth may depend less on accumulating more knowledge and more on knowing what to retain, what to reconsider and what to learn again. In a business environment defined by constant change, the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn may be one of the most enduring leadership capabilities of all.

Learn more about ISB’s PGP MAX here.

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