By Sarah Horn, Executive Education, ESMT Berlin In today’s hyper-optimized world, comfort and convenience are often prized. But in doing so, we may evade the very experiences that enable deep leadership growth. Extreme emotional or physical experiences – such as long solo travel or an out-of-the-comfort-zone work project – provide excellent preparation for real leadership challenges. Consider Spanx founder Sara Blakely who credits years of door-to-door sales with building a resilience that no MBA program could teach. Or take Oprah Winfrey, whose early struggles with poverty and trauma gave rise to the emotional intelligence that would define her leadership style. And it’s no coincidence that a 2018 study by EY and espnW found that 94% of women in C-suite roles once competed in elite sports. Professional female soccer player about to kick ball in full floodlit stadium under dramatic sunset ... More sky Uncomfortable or challenging experiences teach leaders to perform under pressure, nurture teamwork in adversity, and recover quickly after failure. This creates a virtuous cycle: mastering setbacks builds confidence and resilience, which enables faster progression and greater impact, which in turn attracts more growth opportunities. Research by Kaitlin Woolley and Ayelet Fishbach (Psychological Science, 2022) confirms this connection. Participants who intentionally sought discomfort – from public speaking to confronting unfamiliar ideas – reported greater long-term growth, engagement, and meaning. MORE FOR YOU Discomfort as mirror and catalyst for deep learning Physical and emotional discomfort reveals to people how they respond under stress, stripping away social masks, presenting their authentic characters. Take trekking alone through unfamiliar terrain. The fatigue, uncertainty, and moments of fear remove pretense and expose behavioral patterns: Do you panic and blame circumstances or take responsibility and problem-solve? Do you withdraw and shut down or find ways to adapt and stay curious? Do you embrace the journey or regret where it’s taken you? Leaders who cognitively engage with discomfort learn to understand their limits, recognize their triggers, and manage their responses when stakes are high. Discomfort also contributes to physiological learning. When someone has climbed a mountain in a snowstorm or finished a marathon despite exhaustion, they have fostered embodied wisdom for perseverance, adaptability, and emotional regulation. Research by Sara Invitto and Patrizia Moselli (Brain Sciences, 2024) outlines how the nervous system encodes intense experiences. “Body memories” – how we moved, felt, and coped in a certain situation – inform how we react or make decisions next time, including how quickly we recover from adversity. As with intuition, the responses of embodied learning are faster and more profound than analytical strategies, building leadership capacity at a deeper level than classroom instruction. Can comfort with discomfort itself be learned? Pursuing challenge doesn’t come naturally to everyone. However, personality psychology and insights from neuroplasticity suggest that openness to uncomfortable experiences and the capacity to grow from them can be encouraged and shaped by the environment. This challenges assumptions about predestination. Leadership develops through both eagerness and opportunity to engage in transformative experiences rather than through innate talent alone. Even mid-level leaders can reshape their leadership approach by seeking experiences that exceed current capabilities or comfort levels. The key is intentionality. Hardship does not automatically create better leaders. However, deliberately chosen challenges – whether physical, emotional, or intellectual – can strengthen neural pathways that serve leaders in high-stakes situations. Mid-career? It’s not too late. Many leaders find themselves stuck mid-career – not because they lack skills, but because their environment no longer tests them, they rely too much on past successes, or they’re busy juggling life’s demands. Preventing this plateau requires intentional pursuit of stretch experiences. For someone with 20 years of leadership experience, meaningful discomfort might look like: Taking on an international assignment Leading a cross-sector pivot Pursuing a sabbatical with bold endeavors Volunteering with stripped away professional identity and status Changing routines to reach an aspirational goal These are strategic investments in leadership capacity. Informed organizations don’t just encourage but expect these activities on the path to the top, challenging leaders to confront who they are and creating critical space for growth, recalibration, or reset. Portrait of a senior professional after taking a golf shot Designing discomfort into leadership development efforts The implications for leadership development are profound. Traditional executive education focuses on frameworks, case studies, best practices, and coaching interventions – all valuable, but insufficient for the embodied wisdom that leadership demands. The best executive education programs integrate discomfort in their design – whether through outdoor learning components, partnerships with volunteer organizations, out-of-the-comfort-zone exercises, challenging dialogue on controversial topics, or other forms of constructive disruption. These modalities forge leaders who master “embodied leadership intelligence”: the ability and courage to navigate complexity and uncertainty under pressure with both intellect and intuition. The embodied leader Leadership develops through lived experience, not just intellectual mastery. The most effective leaders carry the embodied wisdom of formative challenges as a source of strength. Especially for those still finding their voice or recalibrating their path: seek out the discomfort. For everyone else: never cease to seek out the discomfort. Through it, you may discover a version of yourself who is wiser, braver, and more present and prepared to lead than you ever imagined. True physical or emotional discomfort teaches what the classroom cannot. Both are essential for shaping the leaders our increasingly complex organizations and world need today. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions