My thoughts on Leading in Learning
I have long maintained that one of the primary roles leadership is to teach.Â
Leaders must both teach and learn from and with the people they serve.  While we learn from and with the people we serve for many obvious reasons I would like to highlight one of the less obvious reasons. We learn from and with our people so that they can see their leaders learning. Our people, like our children, learn how to learn from us. It is an undisputed fact that children who have parents who read are far more likely to be better readers than those who do not.
Likewise in organizations that have developed strong learning cultures there are overt signs of leaders who learn. This learning occurs in both formal and informal ways. The formal ways may include institutional training programs, obtaining required CEUs, conferences etc. These are important, helpful and necessary but they are not the most influential element of a strong learning culture.
INFORMAL LEARNING - is where the real magic takes place. This is where, because of the leaders own passionate pursuit of personal excellence and development people around them are affected as they are infected by the leaders contagious enthusiasm and example. They see their leader learning more and becoming more. They see their knowledge, competence and confidence increasing and these attractive attributes attract their attention and can awaken and inspire in them their own longing for learning.
Great leaders are teachers…. and the truest and most noble purpose of teaching is not to impart knowledge but to change lives for the better…it is to improve the human condition. The most effective teachers teach by example. Yes feet must match mouth, but we are far more effective when our words match our footsteps. Then as we talk joyfully about the walk we are already on we allow our example in inspire and invite others to do the same.Â
As leaders let us teach to change lives - and use words if necessary.
Grow for it! ~ Kirk Weisler
December 7th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
You are bang on Kirk.
Upon reflection, I believe informal learning is internal culture. Formal learning is predominantly external culture.
Anyone can send someone on a training course and claim they have a learning culture in their organisation. And let me be clear on my view on this one, it is not a bad thing that an organisation invests in such learning - that is the first step. However to claim we are a ‘learning based organisation’ just by pouring money into training people up, on it’s own doesn’t cut it and can actually lead to a place of apathy if, in this ‘outsourced world’, we think we have ‘managed’ our learning culture in such a way.
Of course part of a learning culture that is intrinsic is that we will make mistakes, we muck something up because we are pushing ourselves, we pick ourselves up and we learn, and move on.
We are building a culture in my company at the moment and this very topic is at the top of the list, lest we fall in the trap of thinking ‘we know everything’. I put my hand up often to say “Sorry, that was my mistake”, then move on to do something about it. I know I ‘learned’ this from a great leader somewhere
The result is fantastic and right along the lines of what you are talking about here. In our team, I hear people saying “That was my mistake, can I get your help on it” or some such thing instead of hiding for fear of the ’seven headed dragon boss’. People don’t fear making mistakes (not that sloppiness is acceptable of course) knowing that we might make a few because we are pushing the boundaries to be on the cutting edge as much as possible.
One last point… I have received leadership teaching in a very powerful form from the wonderful people that have been placed in my path to learn form. These leaders have had the humility to say “you know what, someone else says this far better than I can” and use some sort of tool or resource as the teacher instead of themself. Maybe they use some short sharing on how they learned themselves from it, then point you in the right direction. Books are a classic for this and many of my most lifechanging moments have come in this form from great leaders who had the wisdom to step back themselves and allow someone else to stand in the limelight of ‘wise one’ to achieve the ultimate goal of helping someone to grow and improve their human condition.
Daniel Burns
December 7th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Sorry, I forgot to add one point that gives the real emphasis on my last paragraph. Being lead to a resource of some sort is where learning often goes to new heights because people are really finding the answer within themselves. They are changing by choice as they improve themselves - they aren’t being told to change ‘or else!’, they aren’t being told they will get some nice reward if they change. They are looking at the quality of their own lives and making good decisions that will change their life for the better, forever. This for me is ultimate teaching and learning for it leads to unshakeable lifetime change.
And so there’s no confusion - I’m not saying a leader can’t deliver this through their words as well, for of course they can and they can, through their words, help people to find such answers as they may find within a book somewhere… maybe the greatest of leaders are the ones who know when to apply the right form of teaching