To understand another world, we must first recognise the limits of our own.

Leadership literature often encourages us to “walk in another person’s shoes.” It is a compelling idea. It speaks to empathy, compassion and emotional intelligence, qualities that most would agree belong in good leadership. Yet I have begun to wonder whether this advice, while well intentioned, asks us to believe something that is ultimately impossible.

Can we ever truly see the world through another person’s eyes?

I don’t believe we can.

Not because we lack empathy, but because every one of us experiences the world through a life that is uniquely our own. Our upbringing, culture, education, relationships, opportunities, disappointments and privileges become the lens through which we interpret almost everything we encounter. We can imagine another person’s experience, we can listen carefully to it, and we can respect it deeply, but we can never entirely inhabit it.

That realisation has profound implications for leadership.

For decades, organisations have encouraged leaders to become more empathetic, yet empathy alone does not dissolve the boundaries of lived experience. A leader who has always found opportunity may genuinely struggle to comprehend what it feels like to continually anticipate barriers. A leader who has rarely questioned whether they belong may not recognise the quiet emotional labour required of someone who constantly assesses whether they are welcome, credible or safe. A leader who has always been heard may never notice the invisible calculations made by those who have learned that speaking carries consequences.

None of this suggests that good leadership is reserved for those who have experienced every circumstance. That would be an impossible standard. Rather, it suggests that good leadership begins with intellectual humility: the willingness to acknowledge that our own experience, however extensive, remains incomplete.

This is where I believe many leadership frameworks become vulnerable.

Much of what we describe as leadership has been shaped by those whose journeys, while valuable, represent only part of the human experience. Their ways of communicating became effective communication. Their approaches to decision-making became sound judgement. Their understanding of resilience became the benchmark against which resilience itself was measured.

Over time, the distinction between one experience and the experience quietly disappeared.

It is easy to see how this happens. We naturally trust what has worked for us. Success reinforces our assumptions, and the more responsibility we acquire, the easier it becomes to believe that our perspective reflects reality rather than simply our relationship with it. Leadership can unintentionally amplify this tendency. As people seek guidance, affirmation or direction, leaders receive fewer opportunities to have their own assumptions genuinely challenged.

Perhaps this is why some of the most thoughtful leaders I have encountered share an unexpected characteristic. They are remarkably cautious about claiming to understand someone else’s experience.

Instead of saying, “I know exactly how you feel,” they ask, “Help me understand what this has been like for you.”

Instead of assuming that two people standing in the same meeting are experiencing the same organisation, they remain curious about what each person may be noticing that they themselves cannot see.

That curiosity is not weakness. It is discipline.

It requires resisting one of our most natural instincts: the desire to translate another person’s story into our own language. We hear someone’s experience and instinctively search our memory for something similar. We believe we are building connection, yet in doing so we often replace their story with our interpretation of it.

Leadership asks something more demanding.

It asks us to remain with another person’s account long enough to recognise that it may never fit comfortably within our own experience. It asks us to accept that another person’s understanding of the organisation, the team or the culture may reveal realities that our own position has protected us from seeing.

This is particularly important when leadership extends across differences in culture, gender, socioeconomic background, education or opportunity. Leaders frequently ask how they can become more inclusive, yet inclusion is not simply the willingness to invite different people into the room. It is the willingness to accept that once they arrive, they may describe a workplace we do not recognise.

That can be confronting.

If a leader believes they have created a culture of openness, hearing that others experience caution or exclusion can feel like a criticism of their intentions. Yet intention and experience are not the same thing. A workplace can feel welcoming to one person while feeling impenetrable to another. Both experiences can exist simultaneously, and both deserve attention.

Perhaps this is why I find myself returning to a different understanding of empathy.

Empathy is not the confidence to say, “I understand.”

It is the humility to say, “There are parts of your experience that I cannot fully know, but I am willing to let them change how I see the world.”

That is a far more demanding proposition because it requires leaders to loosen their grip on certainty. It asks them to consider that someone with less authority may possess greater insight into aspects of the organisation they themselves cannot perceive. It recognises that perspective is shaped not only by intelligence, but by position.

The more I reflect on leadership, the less convinced I become that it is about having the broadest experience. It seems instead to be about recognising the boundaries of our own and creating the conditions in which other experiences are not simply heard, but allowed to reshape our understanding.

Perhaps the most influential leaders are not those who see everything.

They are those who know there are things they cannot see and spend their careers searching for them.