By Paige Yousey
There’s a weird point in your career when people start looking to you for answers—right around the same time you realize how many answers you still don’t have.
That’s emerging leadership. You have more responsibility, bigger decisions, and higher stakes, but no magical handbook appears with the promotion. Eventually, you’ll hit a decision you can’t Google, a problem you’ve never seen before, or a moment when you simply need someone who gets it.
The smartest leaders don’t wait until that moment to figure out who to call. They build their list of people before they need them.
Think of it as your personal board of directors. Not one mentor expected to somehow meet every need, but a collection of people who each bring something different to the table. Some will challenge you. Some will remind you what you already know. Some will have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, and that might be exactly why you need them.
So, who gets a seat?
The Elder
Every field has people who’ve been doing the work long enough to remember what came before the current best practice. The framework before this framework. The technology everyone swore would change everything, before the technology that actually did. The Elder isn’t valuable because they know more facts than you. They’re valuable because they’ve watched enough cycles to know which parts of your current crisis are actually new. And which parts are just an old problem wearing a fresh coat of paint.
An Elder gives you pattern recognition you haven’t had time to earn yet. Your new initiative feels urgent. Unprecedented. Career-defining. And then someone quietly mentions your organization tried something almost identical in 2016. They’ll even tell you why it worked, or why it flopped. That’s not them raining on your parade. That’s them handing you a shortcut. The best Elders don’t just serve up the answer. They help you see the actual shape of the problem, so you can find your own way through it. Consider it wisdom, pre-loaded.
How to Find Them
- Listen for the person who says “we tried something like this before.” Bonus points if they say it to add texture, not to shut you down.
- Show up at conferences and corner the long-tenured speakers after their sessions. One good hallway conversation can start the whole thing.
- Ask your own leadership who they call when they need historical context. Elders are often hiding a few steps outside your daily orbit.
An Elder’s job is to offer perspective, not to run your life. The second their track record starts feeling like an obligation instead of a resource, you’ve quietly swapped a mentor for a boss you didn’t sign up for.
The Rookie
Every field has a shelf life for freshness. The Rookie is your defense against that expiration date. They walked in six months ago with zero baggage and zero “that’s just how we’ve always done it.” They ask the question you stopped asking years ago. Why do we do it this way? Half the time you won’t have a good answer. That’s the point.
A Rookie hands you something an Elder never can. Total, unfiltered ignorance of your field’s sacred cows. They haven’t been trained yet to accept your industry’s weird little inefficiencies as normal. So when they ask why a process takes six approvals instead of two, don’t get defensive. Get curious. That question might be the best one your team has heard all quarter. Rookies keep you from calcifying into the version of yourself that stopped noticing the ruts. Every industry has ruts. Yours included.
How to Find Them
- Look for the newest hire on your team or in your professional network. Bonus points if they’re still asking “why” more than “how.”
- Actually listen in onboarding sessions. New hires often say the smartest, most obvious thing in the room, right before everyone talks them out of it.
- Seek out early-career voices at conferences and on social media. Their takes are usually less filtered and more fun.
This seat has an expiration date built in. A Rookie who’s been in the field five years isn’t a Rookie anymore.
Refill this seat often, or you’ll wake up one day surrounded by people who all think exactly like you.
The Cheerleader
Some days the win is small and you almost miss it. That’s where the Cheerleader comes in. They’re the one who spots the bright side before you’ve even finished explaining the disaster. Project got cut in half? They’ll tell you the half that’s left is actually the good half. Feedback stung? They’ll remind you that stinging feedback usually means someone cared enough to be honest. Not every day needs a hype squad. But the days that do, you’ll be glad you built one in advance.
A Cheerleader offers something more useful than blind positivity. They offer perspective recalibration. When you’re deep in a setback, your brain is terrible at zooming out. Theirs isn’t. They remind you what actually went right, what you learned, and what’s still standing after the wreckage clears. That’s not toxic positivity. That’s just someone doing the emotional math you’re too close to do yourself. A good Cheerleader doesn’t ignore the hard parts. They just refuse to let the hard parts be the whole story.
How to Find Them
- Notice who shows up after a rough meeting with “okay, but here’s what we can take from this.”
- Look for the person who remembers your wins better than you do. They’ll bring up that project you already forgot you nailed.
- Ask around. People rarely forget who showed up for them on a bad day. Somebody will point you in the right direction.
A Cheerleader who never sees a downside isn’t optimistic. They’re just not paying attention. The real ones can hold both truths at once. If yours only ever tells you what you want to hear, you don’t have a Cheerleader. You have a yes-man.
The Challenger
Not everyone on your board is there to make you feel good. The Challenger’s whole job is to disagree with you, on purpose, out loud. They’ll poke holes in your plan before your boss does. They’ll ask the question you were quietly hoping nobody would ask. And the wild part is, you actually listen. Because this isn’t some random critic sniping from the sidelines. This is someone whose judgment you respect enough to let them talk you off a ledge, or occasionally shove you toward one you need to jump off.
A Challenger gives you the thing an echo chamber never will. Actual resistance. Everyone else on your board tends to soften the blow a little. The Challenger doesn’t bother. They’ll tell you the plan has a hole in it, the numbers don’t add up, or the idea sounds better in your head than it will in the room. That stings for about five minutes. Then it saves you from finding out the hard way, in front of an audience that isn’t rooting for you. A Challenger worth keeping doesn’t poke holes for sport. They poke them because they want you to win, and they know the win requires the plan to actually hold up.
How to Find Them
- Think back to the last person who told you your idea had a problem, and you didn’t hate them for it afterward. Start there.
- Look for the colleague who asks “have you considered…?” right before a decision gets made, not after it’s already failed.
- Seek out someone whose track record you respect enough that their pushback actually changes your mind sometimes.
A Challenger only works if the respect runs both directions. If you secretly think they’re wrong about everything, their pushback is just noise. And that person who only challenges you to prove they’re smarter? That’s not a Challenger; it’s just someone who enjoys watching you squirm.
The Peer
Some problems don’t need solving. They just need someone else who gets it. That’s the Peer. Same career stage, same weird pressures, same 2 p.m. Tuesday feeling of “why did I think this job was a good idea.” The Peer isn’t handing you wisdom from 20 years down the road. They’re standing right next to you in the trenches, and honestly, that’s exactly what you need most days.
A Peer offers something none of your other board members can: Solidarity, not solutions. When you vent about a frustrating stakeholder or a project that’s gone sideways, the Peer doesn’t reach for advice first. They say “me too,” and something in your chest unclenches a little. That’s not nothing. Knowing you’re not the only one white-knuckling it through this exact season of your career takes real weight off. Sometimes the most useful thing another person can offer isn’t a fix. It’s proof you’re not losing your mind.
How to Find Them
- Look sideways, not up. Your Peer is probably at your exact level, not above or below it.
- Find people at the same career stage through professional communities, cohorts, or conferences. Shared timing beats shared job title.
- Notice who reaches out first after a rough week, not because they want something, but because they’re in it too.
A Peer isn’t just someone your age. It’s someone at your exact career stage. A 45-year-old switching into L&D for the first time might be your Peer. A 25-year-old who’s been doing this for six years and is in the same spot might not be.
The Wildcard
Every board needs one person who has absolutely no idea what an LMS is. The Wildcard works completely outside your field. Different industry, different vocabulary, different set of assumptions about what “normal” even looks like. And that’s exactly why they’re useful. They can’t see your industry’s invisible fences, because they never learned where the fences were supposed to go.
A Wildcard offers a perspective nobody inside your bubble can. Genuine outside eyes. Explain a problem to them and you’ll probably have to explain it twice, because your industry jargon means nothing to them. That’s a feature, not a bug. Forcing yourself to translate your work into plain language often reveals whether you actually understand it, or whether you’ve just gotten good at repeating the buzzwords. And sometimes their answer to your problem is something your entire field would never think of, purely because they’ve never been told it’s impossible.
How to Find Them
- Look outside work entirely. A friend, a neighbor, someone from a hobby that has nothing to do with your job.
- Ask people in totally different careers how they’d solve a problem you’re stuck on. Their answer might be delightfully off base, or exactly what you needed.
- Resist the urge to only surround yourself with people who already get it. The whole point is someone who doesn’t.
A Wildcard’s ignorance is the asset here, so don’t accidentally train it out of them. The moment they start using your industry’s jargon back at you, you’ve lost your outside eyes and gained one more person who thinks like everyone else on the board.
The Time Traveler
This one’s a little different from the rest. The Time Traveler isn’t someone you’ll find at a conference or in your contacts list. It’s you. Specifically, the version of you five or 10 years down the road, looking back at the decision you’re stuck on right now. Every board needs at least one member who isn’t bound by the current moment. This is that seat.
A Time Traveler skips straight to the outcome. Not because they can see the future. Because imagining them changes the question you’re asking. Instead of “what should I do,” you start asking “what will this look like in five years.” That question almost always has a clearer answer. Most bad decisions feel urgent today and pointless later. Most good ones feel hard today and obvious later. The Time Traveler is just you, borrowing tomorrow’s clarity a little early.
How to Find Them
- Set aside five quiet minutes before a big decision. No phone, no meeting, just you and the question.
- Picture a specific moment. Yourself at a future job, a future stage, looking back on this exact fork in the road. What does that person say?
- Ask yourself what you’d regret not trying, more than what you’re afraid might fail.
This board member never shows up uninvited. You have to actually make the appointment. This seat is the one nobody remembers to fill until it’s too late. Build the habit before the high-stakes decision shows up, not during it.
Take a Look Around the Table
7 Seats: How Many of Yours Are Actually Filled?
Really think about it: Who has earned a seat at your table, and who are you realizing you’ve been missing? Maybe you have three names immediately and four blanks. Maybe one person has been trying to play four roles because you’ve expected too much from a single relationship. The best leaders aren’t the ones who somehow have every answer, every perspective, and every strength themselves. They’re the ones who recognize what the people around them bring to the table, make room for it, and know when to lean on it.
Your leadership was never just about what you bring to the table.
It’s about knowing who else belongs at it.
Image credit: iantfoto
