I’ve been doing jigsaw puzzles for decades, but I recently had an experience I’ve never had before: I was seriously tempted to walk away from a puzzle without finishing it, an odd feeling.

All the strategies I had long used to solve puzzles were failing me.

If you’re a puzzle person, you know the rhythms of the beginning and end of assembling one. You separate out all the edge pieces and start with the frame. Then, as you near the end, the last pieces practically place themselves.

This puzzle was different. It was challenging from start to finish, and it reminded me of something more valuable than how to fit cardboard pieces together.

In leadership, as in life, we sometimes find ourselves in a situation where nothing we have learned or experienced before applies. We have to adjust our style to what an individual or a team needs, and we sometimes discover or develop entirely new approaches to achieve our goals.

Early-career insight: A leadership approach meets its limits

Early in my career, I was an energetic new supervisor of a team of microbiologists. I’d completed a career development course and quickly adopted it into my leadership approach. I eagerly worked with each of my team members on their career development plan. In conversations with one of my microbiologists, I asked him to describe his dream job.

“Walk in the woods and drink beer,” he deadpanned.

Clearly, I did not have that type of job in the laboratory. I realized a different approach was required. Importantly, I had to figure out how to motivate this young man.

Through our conversations, we discovered a creative side and his desire to instruct. We made him the laboratory trainer, and he excelled in that role. He deployed interesting and innovative ways to help orient new microbiologists.

Later in his career, he asked me to be a reference for him for a job he was very excited about (a real dream job): director at a children’s science museum. He got the job and has been in that field ever since.

Rethinking one-size-fits-all development

As a leader, I discovered that the tools and techniques I learned to use for career development with my team could not be universally applied. That was not only true for the science museum director but also for all the team members in the lab. Many of them weren’t even interested in career development conversations!

At the time, I just assumed everyone had to have a career development plan. I also saw it as a requirement for my success as the team’s supervisor. Ultimately, I had to let go of that ideal.

I thought about that experience recently as I struggled with the jigsaw puzzle. This puzzle didn’t have normal edge pieces. Their multiple curves made them entirely ambiguous. I thought those odd shapes would actually make them easier to connect, but I was wrong.

I eventually pushed aside the edge pieces and looked for a different entry point. Then I noticed that the interior pieces were all the same shape and size, and roughly half of them were either solid pink or solid white.

Another nibble of doubt crept in.

That’s when I spotted the black wire, a cord threading through the entire image. I latched onto that dark line, and it became the “frame” that I built the puzzle around, even though it snaked through the interior and not the edge.

Then I made another unusual, for me, decision: Even though I knew they weren’t all correct, I wedged the pink and white interior pieces into certain spots because they were close enough. I wasn’t sure how the final edges would fit with the “imperfect” middle pieces, but I decided to trust the process.

I took breaks and walked away when I got frustrated. Taking a pause helped quiet my internal debate about whether to abandon the puzzle.

Eventually, I had to take apart some of the middle pieces that connected to the border and rebuild sections I thought were complete. But the puzzle did come together. The whole thing only took me a couple of days, though it felt like weeks. That’s the emotional weight of uncertainty; it distorts time and tests your resolve.

Knowing when to reset

The lesson of this isn’t simply “never give up.” It's more subtle than that. Sometimes determination means starting over. Sometimes grit means admitting your first approach isn’t working. Sometimes finishing requires the courage to dismantle what you’ve already built.

The puzzle taught me that my decades of experience didn’t make me immune to the need for a reset. Whether it centers on a puzzle, a work project or anything else, expertise doesn’t mean you always know the answer; it means you recognize when you’re stuck and have the humility to try something new.

Hope Mueller is senior vice president, corporate development and strategy at Currax Pharmaceuticals