Learning Organization - Creating a Learning Organization and Leading it

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Knowledge economy, teamwork, Top management, learning, study, practise, I learned something, Jack Welch, Boston Celtics

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Leading a Learning Organization

A leader's role in a learning organization is different from that of a decision maker. In a learning organization a leader is a designer, a teacher, and a steward. The skills required for these roles are an ability to bring shared vision to the surface and challenge existing mental models, and an ability to foster systematic ways of thinking in the organization. Leaders in learning organizations have to make sure that their people expand their capacities and shape their futures. In other words, they are responsible for the learning of their people and their organization.

According to Peter Senge, leadership in a learning organization is based on the principle of creative tension. Creative tension occurs when the leader sees clearly where the organization should be, and understands clearly where the organization is currently. The gap between where the organization should be and where it is generates creative tension. As Peter Senge says, there are two ways of resolving creative tension. First, raise the current reality towards vision and second, lower vision towards reality. Organizations which learn to work with creative tension know how to channel the energy created by that tension to move reality towards their visions.

Leader as a Designer
An organization with poor design will be an ineffective organization, even if it is led by a great leader. Organization design is concerned with designing governing ideas of purpose, vision, and core values by which people will live. The first task of leadership is designing governing ideas to be followed by policies, strategies, and structures that can translate guiding ideas into business decisions. The appropriateness of policies, strategies, and structures to a large extent depends upon effective learning processes. Thus the leader's third task in a learning organization is to create such processes.

Leader as a Teacher
A leader's main responsibility is to define reality. He should help his people get accurate, insightful, and empowering views of current reality. Thus the leader assumes the role of a teacher. According to Peter Senge, teaching role in a learning organization can be developed by giving attention to people's mental models and with the help of systems thinking. A leader as a teacher has to bring people's mental models of important issues to surface. This is important because, a mental picture of how the world works (people hold this mental picture), influences how people perceive various problems and opportunities. It also influences how the courses of action are identified and how people make their choices.

A leader's job is not over with revealing the hidden assumptions. People mistake reality for events. They see the pressures they have to borne, the crises they must react to, and the limitations they must accept as reality. But these are just obvious and temporary conditions. There are some underlying causes that cause these problems. A leader as a teacher shows what is beyond these obvious events. There can be a pattern behind these events. And there can be basic problem behind this pattern. A leader has to make his people restructure their views of reality. By addressing the problems behind pattern of events (here crises, and pressures), a leader can help his people create a new future.

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