Unlearn What’s Known

Why expertise is no longer enough

Expertise gives us mastery over what was, but reinvention demands fluency in what’s becoming.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 found that 44 % of workers’ core skills are expected to change within the next five years, driven by advances in AI, shifting customer expectations, and new sustainability demands.
McKinsey’s long-term analysis suggests that as many as 375 million people may need to reinvent their roles entirely by 2030, learning new skills or moving into entirely new occupations.

That’s not a talent gap, it’s a transformation gap.

Leaders who once thrived on expertise are now discovering that what made them valuable yesterday might make them less relevant tomorrow. The skill that matters most now isn’t mastery, it’s mobility, the ability to stay open, curious, and always learning.

So the question isn’t “How do I become the expert?”
It’s “How do I stay available to learn?”

The new leadership advantage: openness, curiosity, learning

The leaders who thrive now are not the ones with the right answers, but the ones asking better questions.

They trade control for curiosity.
They see feedback not as threat, but as direction. They build teams that learn faster than they execute.

Curiosity isn’t a “soft” skill. It’s a strategic one. Forbes calls it the new resilience, the capacity to stay open when everything else is closing in.

They lead like scientists, not experts, testing, adjusting, learning out loud.
And in that constant state of becoming, they remind us that leadership isn’t about having answers.
It’s about building the kind of culture where everyone keeps asking better questions.